Consumption Project Essay Nothing’s as simple as it seems. Every purchase I make is the result of consumer decision making and motivational factors. As an impatient college student experiencing time poverty, I hate shopping because of the time it takes, low amounts of enjoyment I get, and lack of shopping experience I have. Because of these elements of my lifestyle, the main influences on my purchases are the brand, ease of the purchase, and the store’s image. As a consumer with little product knowledge, familiarity with a product’s brand is important to my decisions. When shopping for products of importance, such as food or drinks (I’m a picky eater), I’ll choose the brand with the most brand equity. I focus on brand because my familiarity with that brand, and associations I have towards it, is the most extensive knowledge I have for small but important purchases, since I lack shopping experience needed to differentiate between the products in other ways. My purchases of Tropicana Orange Juice and Title Boxing Wraps are an example. My family grew up drinking Tropicana orange juice, and I have very strong positive associations with Tropicana. As an unexperienced shopper, I was drawn to the brand of orange juice I was comfortable with, since that was the best knowledge I had about the product’s quality. As for Title boxing wraps, I have experience in boxing and Title is a brand I’ve seen to be reliable. I chose this brand because I knew it wouldn’t let me down during athletic competition. Both of these purchases had high levels of importance, so I focused on brand because, for me, it’s the best indicator of quality. With products that are important to consumers (food/drink, sports equipment) but have little differentiating them from competitors, brand equity is key. To target inexperienced and unknowledgeable shoppers, marketers should focus on the trustworthiness and reliability of brands, since that’s what these consumers look for. Like other college students, I lack extra time to go shopping (time poverty). For straight or modified rebuys, convenience and ease of purchase are deciding factors since I view these products as unimportant and not worth substantial thought. My purchases of milk, paper towels, and cortisone cream show this. Buying milk was simple; I ran out of milk, I view it as a necessity, and I was motivated to fix this necessity to reduce unease. Orange Market is the closest store and only sells one brand of milk. My choice was made by convenience of the store’s location. Had there been a closer store with milk, I would have purchased that milk brand. The paper towels I purchased were a result of convenient product placement. While purchasing orange juice, I noticed a paper towel display behind me. Point-of-purchase stimuli played a major role here since the display, which compared the cleaning power of Bounty to competing brands, reminded me of my frequency to spill. Upon seeing this, I became aware of my need for paper towels, which led to unplanned buying. My purchase of cortisone cream was a little different. Medicine purchases have always been a challenge, since I know little about ingredients in them and the packages contain medical jargon. The CVS Cortisone I purchased was the simplest anti-itch cream I found. The simplicity of the product label (which said the medicine’s name and non-technical medical purpose) led to my purchase, since I experienced sensory overload and just wanted any anti-itch product. With products of little importance, marketers need to realize that consumers put less thought into these purchases. Marketers should focus on the convenience of the purchase; placing these products near other common purchases and reminding consumers of their usefulness will lead to unplanned buying. The final influence to my purchases was store image. As someone who hates shopping, walking into a store that creates any sense of arousal raises my consumer experience. Supercuts did this, it evoked feelings of relaxation and friendship; partly because of the atmospherics (store is clean with open space, bright colors, and pleasant smells) and partly because of the staff’s congeniality. Although not the cheapest, Supercuts is the most welcoming of the stores I visited. With services, I’m drawn to stores that create feelings of arousal or pleasure, since these feelings lead to pleasant shopping experiences. Managers of these service providers should recognize this and focus on making the experience pleasurable and arousing for customers through atmospherics. By creating a stimulating and pleasant service space, customers will enjoy their experience and continue shopping there.
As a young adult with little shopping experience; brand equity, convenience, and store image are key motivational factors to my purchase decisions. For important purchases, brand equity is a factor and marketers should advertise reliability. For products of little importance, reminding the consumer of a need produces spontaneous purchasing. Finally, for services, stores should focus on being welcoming, arousing, and pleasant to be in to keep customers stimulated and pleased.