Question 1
(a)
In today’s competitive world, every company has to study consumer’s purchasing power and behaviour prior to develop a marketing plan for their product. This enables the marketer to understand who constitute the market, what and why the market buys, who participates in and influences the buying process, and how, when and where consumer buy (Marketing Teacher, 2014).

The car market, in the same manner as other markets, has entered an aggressive period in which, despite the fact that volume sales have expanded, business sector qualities are declining as a consequence of high capacity, abnormal amounts of imports and business immersion. Ladies are still much more probable than men to live in family units with no car, despite the fact that the example is much more equivalent among more youthful men and ladies. Ladies' increased earning power and rising their financial, thus make them one of the developing significance in growing car producers' debilitated deals targets. (Kaplan, 2015)

For Volvo company, they have done a research indicates that in the United states, women purchase about 65 percent of cars and influence 80 percent of all car sales (Walter, 2012). Therefore, Volvo find out the woman preferred car by forming a group of all female team project manager and automobile designer, thus they found out that female customer in the premium segment demand for everything that men wanted in term of the performance, prestige and style. (Carscoops, 2015) In my opinion, other research method that Volvo can use is the Online research methods. The Internet now reaches the great majority of households in the world, and thus, online research provides new opportunity and has increased in use. One of the benefit of online surveys is the use of conditional branching. Conditional branching allows the computer to skip directly to the appropriate question. If a respondent is asked which brands he or she considered, it is also possible to customize brand comparison questions to those listed. Suppose, for example, that the respondent considered Ford, Toyota, and Hyundai, it would be possible to ask the subject questions about his or her view of the relative quality of each respective pair. For example, Ford vs. Toyota, Ford vs. Hyundai, and Toyota vs. Hyundai.

(b)
There are a few design elements Volvo YCC should be considered valuable to female consumers. Firstly is the design for solving the small storage solution. Nowadays, most of the women are shopaholics and some of them would have problems with their car storage, where they can't fit all stuff that have been bought. Thus, Volvo should design their concept car with a smart storage that could fit in a lot of stuff, for example the passenger seat behind that can be fold down and create a space for customer to put their thing.

The second design element is the car that easy to get in and get down, female usually will wear dress and some of the car design would hard to enter if women are wearing a dress, because they will concerned about whether they will wardrobe malfunction. Therefore, Volvo should design a car that has enough space and exact height for a women that are wearing dress enter the car without ant wardrobe malfunction. Next design is the car with a good visibility, these days there are many car accident happen due the car driver can't see the car that are coming from a dead angle. For example, when you are trying to turning left into a corner but you can't see a bike is coming through the left side this is the angle where we driver can't see because the bike is coming from a dead angle. Therefore Volvo should design a car that is good in visibility by putting a sensor that can sense the object that is inside the dead angle.

Furthermore, Volvo should also focus on designing a car that is easy to park. Most of the female are having a hard time when it comes to park a car, therefore Volvo can design their concept car with light steering and also a 360 degree sensor and a rear view camera that can indicate the distance of the car and the other car.

Question 2

It is said that women influence 80 percent of the decision making of purchasing cars. There is no doubt that the women’s decisions have a huge impact over the automobiles industry in today’s world than any other time in history. There are a few elements of consumer consumption of cars that should be considered when reflecting new models in the future. First of all, when people are considering of purchasing a car, they will select the most favourable one depending on their lifestyles and motivation. One’s lifestyle can reflect the demographic variables and also people’s interest. Consumers like businessmen tend to go for more luxurious cars like Mercedes and Volvo, as cars stand for their status on the road.

According to the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, once a person had satisfied the first three stages of the needs, that person will then seek to fulfil the esteem needs (McLeod, 2007). Referring to businessmen’s lifestyle, they will need to travel to work or meetings very often, thus with a luxury car, they are wearing their status when they’re on the road. Since they spend so much time traveling in cars, Volvo YCC can consider setting up Wi-Fi in YCC in order to save more time while having an appointed videoconferencing in the car. With this element, consumers not only save most of their time, they can also satisfy their needs to possess the conspicuous consumption by showing how successful they are with their luxury cars.

According to the company’s market research information, women prefer paying less for their automobiles (Autobytel.com, 2015). By paying lesser, it means automobiles with more features but a reasonable price. The automobiles organization can add more features but at the same time, maintaining the price of that particular vehicle. Other than that, the organization can consider cutting down the down payment when one makes the purchase and also offer 5 years warranty in terms of the insurance aspect. The organization should also offer consumers with a favourable price of a new car with a trade-in of disposable automobiles. In this case, both the organization and consumers are in a win-win situation as consumers get to purchase brand new automobiles in a cheaper price by trading in their previous automobiles. Of course, the prices of the new automobiles are not necessary to be a standard low price with any traded in cars, the prices are regarding to the condition of the traded in automobiles as well. With consumers disposing their automobiles, the company can earn some profits by selling parts of the automobiles, which are still in good condition to car manufacturers for reinforcement or creating something new out of it.

Despite the entire designed element of the interior of Volvo YCC, a compartment for make-ups should be considered as more than two-thirds of the new cars are bought by women (Elliott, 2011). The compartment will always be an area with constant low air temperature in order to keep all women’s cosmetics persevered and long lasting.

Adding on, the compartment does not directly being accessed to the sunlight so that the cosmetics will always be in shape. Also, the compartment for the cosmetics and make-up tools can be designed to be more fancy and exaggerating while opening it with a make-up vanity lighting mirror sliding up from below between the handbrake and gear level compartment. Women are looking for cars that they can trust and feel safe.

Therefore, a fingerprint lock system can be considered, as it is the most secure way to keep the cars from being stolen. The fingerprint accessibility system can also be comprised to the steering wheel if the system is switched on, which, the only the owner can do so. Hence, it is almost impossible for stealing to occur when the security system is activated.

Other than that, rising crime rates and snatch theft by breaking a vehicle's window glass to steal valuables in the car whether the passenger is occupying the vehicle or not has been a major concern in recent days. Volvo should take this into consideration and install tempered glasses for the window panels in the Volvo YCC to solve this issue.

Moreover, Volvo YCC can also adopt the automatic parking technology into the Volvo YCC to relieve the driver of parking their cars. This function has proven to be a major success and attracted many female drivers to purchase the Ford Fiesta. “Focus sales totaled 1,020,410 cars globally last year, according to Polk data released Tuesday by Ford” (O’Toole, 2015).

Question 3 The consumer decision making process consists of seven stages which are need recognition, search for information, pre-purchase evaluation of alternatives, purchase, consumption, post-consumption evaluation and lastly divestment.

Buying a product such as the Volvo YCC is categorised as an extended problem solving where the purchase involvement level is high, complex problem recognition and where consumers are likely to undergo extensive information search and evaluation of alternatives.

Therefore, there are several marketing implications and strategies that can be associated with the consumer decision making process; mainly need recognition and information search. Marketing strategies that can be applied include price, product, place and promotion.

Firstly, Volvo can influence the need recognition stage to speed up the consumer decision making process when marketing their Volvo YCC. The need recognition is the first and most important step in the buying process. If there is no need, there is no purchase. This recognition happens when there is a lag between the consumer’s actual situation and the ideal and desired one” (Perreau, 2013).It is important for Volvo to know their consumers need in order to market the Volvo VCC. After Volvo YCC is produce, they can activate their target market’s need recognition by changing consumer desired state with the new design and innovation. For example, women might not know about the creation of Volvo YCC that has a make-up compartment in the car. By marketing the product through advertising, women will realise that they need this car. The ultimate marketing strategy is to promote this by using social media as a main source to persuade and change consumer’s opinion.

Secondly, Volvo can entice their segmented market by influencing how they perceive their current actual state. For example, Volvo can promote the vehicle and associate it with the image of luxury and prestige to women. Therefore by owning the latest Volvo YCC, it can reflect a consumer symbol of wealth. For this case, Volvo can launch an advertising campaign with female ambassadors that project status and prestige.
Thirdly, Volvo can remind consumer of a specific need. For example, being environmental friendly is important nowadays. According to statistics, there has been an increase trend in environment friendly behaviour in the USA. According to statistics, environment factor ranked number 8 in consumer purchase of a car (Choi, 2015). Thus, Volvo can remind consumer of the need to part in conserving the earth by using the a Hybrid Car such as Volvo YCC that has fewer carbon monoxide emission

On the other hand, Volvo is able to influence the information search through external search. Consumers engage in external search through collecting information search from the environment such as websites, advertisements and sales people. As Volvo, they have to do promotion using the right channel so that their target market gets the message. For example’ Volvo can use radio to broadcast it message so that their consumer receive their message. Later on, consumers that are interested in Volvo YCC would go to the website and find more information. Therefore, Volvo could have a interactive web design layout where the user can have a live chat with sales personnel from Volvo to acquire more information.

Furthermore, Volvo can also monitor search activities to identify new ways to reach and gain customer. For example, if people frequently search for information about automobile on search engine such as Google and Bing, Volvo can advertise their official website on these search engines in order to make their official Volvo YCC website appear at the very top of the result search by individuals. According to Google official statistics, there are over 1 billion searches on Google every day. “More than a million advertisers are using Google ad platforms the majority of which are small business.” (Google.com, 2015)

Moreover, Volvo can focus promotions on sources that consumers search most, including individuals that provide information. For example, Volvo can use this strategy of using YouTube advertising to promote their Volvo YCC in the beginning of every video that are in the automobile category. According to YouTube’s official statistics, there are over 128 million people in the US visit YouTube every month. “Everyday people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube and generate billion of views.” (Google.com, 2015)

Lastly, it is crucial for Volvo to monitor consumer’s price comparison activities to gauge their price sensitivity. As most consumers would be concerned about how they would finance their car as price is an important factor that influences a consumer to purchase vehicles, Volvo could have a financial advisor to provide advice and how to manage their car loans. For example: Volvo could have this strategy where there can offer cash rebates for the down payment of the Volvo YCC.

With regards to ‘place’ of the marketing strategy, Volvo can make the Volvo YCC available in their showrooms for viewing.

In conclusion, by implementing the marketing strategies discussed above and with all the marketing implications taken into consideration, Volvo will be able to successfully influence females’ decision making process through activating need recognition and influencing information search.

(2,510 words)

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