Marketing Communications

Chapter 3 : Understanding the Retail Customer

The Market

Structure of the buying population and their behavior

Population Analysis

Immigration and Emigration
Race and ethnicity

Demographic Analysis

Age distribution of population
Income
Urbanization
The shrinking household
The working women
The diversified minorities

Geographic Analysis

Regional market
Metro geography
Non metro geography

Consumer Buying Behavior

Buying considerations - What Consumers Buy

Product tangibility
Product durability
Product availability

Buying Situations - How much do they buy?

Consumer population
Consumer requirements
Consumer potential

Buying Centers - Who buys?

Buying influences - Why do they buy?

Psychological factor
Personal factor
Social factor

Consumer Buying Process - How do consumers buy?

Stimulus
Problem awareness
Information search
Evaluation of alternatives
Purchase
Post purchase Behavior
Types of Consumer Decision- Making:

Extended decision making
Limited decision making
Routine decision making

Buying Scenes - Where do they buy?

Chapter Summary

Any organization's growth and survival in the highly competitive market depends on how well it understands its customers and responds to their current and potential needs. In the retail industry, understanding the retail customers plays an important role in the success of a retail store. The development of technology and globalization has led to a new era of consumerism where retailers focus completely on meeting the needs, wants and priorities of the consumer. In this chapter, we discussed about the market and the various factors influencing the buying behavior of a retail customer.

To understand the nature of the retail market, a retailer should analyze various factors like population, demography, and the geography of a particular area. Population analysis helps the retailer to understand potential markets. The population of an area is based on various parameters, like immigration and emigration rates, race and ethnicity. Immigration and emigration rates help the retailer to understand the actual population of a particular area. Race and ethnicity help the retailer to understand the choices and buying patterns of the consumers.

Under demographic analysis, the retailer classifies customers on the basis of their age, sex, education, income, occupation, race, nationality, etc. This allows the retailer to understand the customers in a better way and customize its products and service accordingly.

Geographic analysis allows the retailers to understand the buying population, based on the total population. Moreover, the population is classified on the basis of region - metro and non – metro- which helps the retailer to have more accurate data about the buying population.

At the end of the chapter, we discussed various factors relating to consumer buying behavior and the buying process.

Next Chapter>>