Individual Factors

Discuss about the Consumer Behaviour for Personal and Social Factors.

The report consists of the factors that influences the decision making process of consumers of Australia. Consumer decision-making process depends on many factors such as external factors and internal factors. The external factors include the market conditions and the marketing activities conducted by the companies for creating awareness of the product among the consumers of the target market. The topic of consumer behaviour is very important nowadays for the companies to identify the needs of the consumers as well as the buying patterns. It will help in developing new products along with formulating new marketing strategies. There are many types of decision-making process such as impulse purchases, routine purchases, limited decision-making and extensive decision-making. The market chosen for studying the factors influencing the mind of the consumers while buying new products is Australian market. On the other hand, the company chosen for explaining the behaviour of the Australian consumers is Apple. The product is iPhone.

In the study, the influence of the individual factors while buying Apple iPhone over other smartphones of Samsung, Htc, LG, Sony, etc. The study considers various internal forces such as personality and motivation. These two internal influences help in the individual factors such as motivations, needs, consumer perception, personality and involvement. There are many types of theories that are related to the traits of motivation and personality. The theories will be explained in the perspective of the marketing strategies of the company i.e. Apple. The theories of personality and motivation include the human psychology that is mentioned in the theories. Apart from that, the theoretical evidences of the marketing strategies and some relevant examples of the company regarding the implication of the theory while studying consumer decision-making process are also discussed in the study. Examples are also provided regarding the impact of the individual influences on the consumer decision-making process.

Many individual factors are responsible for creating a significant impact on the minds of the Australian consumers. Australian market in terms of Apple iphone is depended mostly on the choices of the consumers of Australia. In the market of smartphones, globally Apple has a high reputation. In terms of revenue, Apple occupies the highest position in the market. In terms of market share, it can be said that Apple does not hold the first position in all countries of the world. Samsung also considered as first choice of consumers when it comes to smartphones. However, it is considered that the Australian market prefer mostly Apple iPhones rather than other smartphones. There are many types of decision-making process that consumers are adopting while buying things. The type of decision-making process that are applicable for buying electronic products i.e. smartphones is extensive decision-making process. Extensive decision making process is defined as the characteristics of the consumers which involve a substantial amount of research before buying the particular product. As a smartphone is an expensive product, and there are many substitutes available in the Australian market, hence Australian consumers will think and consider about the substitutes. Decisions are made after consulting with trusted friends, relatives, doing extensive research on internet that includes consumer magazines, reading reviews, online ratings, etc. It can be said that this type of decision-making process lasts for a longer time as the Australian consumers will invest a huge amount of money while purchasing the Apple iPhone.

Impact on the Consumer Purchase Decision-Process

Apple will use many theories and models regarding personality and motivation that are responsible for creating impact on the minds of the consumers while buying Apple iPhones over other smartphones. To measure the aspect of customer involvement in buying Apple iPhone, the company will consider some aspect such as characteristics of the product, number of brands considered, number of sellers contacted, number of various attributes of product evaluated,  number of external sources used, amount of time spent in searching the research, etc. However, the aspect of motivation and personality is related to human psychology. Hence, neuroscience is considered as an important tool that Apple can also use while development of marketing strategy and testing the purchasing decision of the Australian consumers. It is described as neuromarketing that is a recent tool that is used by Apple in order to involve the theories of personality and motivation in the theoretical perspective.

There are many theories of personality and motivation that are important for describing its impact on the consumer purchase decision-making process. Personality is described as the understanding the needs of buyers while converting them into potential customers, study of consumer behaviour is important. In order to understand the buying habits and the priorities of the consumers, it is very important to understand the personality of the consumers. Personality of consumers signifies the inner characteristics mainly psychological characteristics that signify his reaction to the external environment (Cervone & Pervin, 2015). It can be said that it is the internal factor that controls the reactions of the person towards external stimuli i.e. towards the product.

It can be said that the nature of personality is static. However, it can change in few perspectives such as birth, marriage or death. On the contrary, it can also change with the gradual passage of time. There are many theories that will explain the characteristics and nature of personality on the buying decision-making process of consumers. The theories are discussed below (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015).

Trait Theory- Trait theory of personality represents the features and characteristics of individuals in a definite way. Characteristics and traits are responsible for defining the buying behaviour of the consumers to the products. Trait theorists illustrate that the personality of the individual stems out the actual traits possess while the identification of the traits is very important. There are common traits that are found in the consumers such as stable, outgoing, sad, relaxed, imaginative, practical, self-assured, imaginative, etc (Ewen, 2014). There are certain assumptions that are related to trait theory such as the stable nature of traits and the limitation in the common traits found in the most of the consumers. Trait theorists also stems out the actual traits possessed by the persons while the theory will help the companies to identify the actual traits that ultimately help them in determining the nature of the consumers of the target market. There are two types of theories i.e. simple trait theory and general trait theory. Simple trait theory illustrates the limited number of characters or traits while the consumers are classified and categorized according to the basis of the traits (Marcuse, 2015). General trait theories illustrate a wide array of characteristics or traits and their identification.

Freud’s Psychoanalytic theory of Personality- Sigmund Freud is known as the father of the theory of personality. Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality is considered as the cornerstone of the modern psychology. Sigmund while proposing the theory follows certain assumptions. At the heart of personality and human motivation lie the unconscious drives and needs. The process of socialization is events that take place in the minds of people that is responsible for creating a huge impact on the behaviour of the individuals. The theory is explained in three categories such as ego, Id and super ego (Kandler,  Zimmermann & McAdams, 2014).

Id- Theory of personality of Freud explained that Id is based on the fulfilment of the immediate needs of an individual. The personality component of Id is consisted of an unconscious psychic energy that is responsible for satisfaction of the basic urges like desire, need and urge.

Ego- Freud described ego as a state of mind that thinks that it illustrates about the state of awareness. It is separate from one another. In the ego state of mind, the individual is responsible for recollecting the memories in future and gains hope for the future as well as focusing on guiltiness (Solomon, Russell-Bennett & Previte, 2013).

Super Ego- Super ego describes about the guidelines that help the individuals in making judgements. The aspects of personality are responsible for holding the moral ideals and standards that individuals acquire from both the society and parents.

Apart from the theories of personality, there are motivational theories that are responsible for the decision-making behaviour of the Australian consumers in terms of Apple iPhones. It can be said that, behaviour of consumers are strongly influenced by different external and internal factors. External conditions include sub-culture, culture, loyalty, family, ethnicity, lifestyle, social class and marketing mix. On the other hand, internal factors include personality motivation, demographics, psychographics, beliefs, attitudes and feelings. Psychological factors include motivation, attitude, beliefs and attitude (Solomon, 2014). There are some other factors like personality, income level, lifestyle and occupation. There are two types of motivation such as intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is defined as the type of motivation, which is driven by the interest of the work that exists within the person, rather than any types of external pressure. On the other hand, external motivation refers motivation that comes from inside. There are some recognized motivational theories that Apple can use while determining the reason of motivation of buying Apple iPhones by Australian consumers. The theories are as follows:

Incentive theory: It is type of theory that focuses on intangible or tangible reward that is being presented to an individual after occurrence of a particular behaviour. In psychology, incentive theory considers behaviour and motivation of the individual will improve if they are engaged with the activities that are profitable in nature.

Drive reduction theory: The theory illustrates that individuals are sometimes driven by biological drives (hunger). Due to the passage of time, the strength of the drivers increases when it is not satisfied (Foxall, 2014).

Escape-seeking dichotomy model: Seeking and escapism are considered as the important factors that help influencing the power of decision-making process of the consumers. Escapism is responsible for the creation of a break in the daily life of the individual. On the other hand, seeking and is illustrated as the urge or desire while gaining the inner benefits of the product.

Cognitive dissonance theory: When a person experiences inconsistency between the personal feelings and the actions and the views of the world, then cognitive dissonance occurs (Schiffman et al., 2013).

Apple, Inc is a company that is considered as the top companies in terms of revenue, leadership, technologies, and most importantly smartphones and other electronic gadgets. The company focuses on niche market in order to sell their product in the market. As it is a global company, hence the strategies related to marketing is also global in nature. Though it can be said that implementation of global strategies in the target market of different countries including Australia. However, implementation of strategy requires a proper market research regarding the target market. In this perspective, Australian consumers are considered (Oliver, 2014). The demand of the market including choice patterns of the customers along with the behaviour of the Australians while buying Apple iPhones is important. Consumer behaviour is important in formulating marketing strategies altogether in order to capture the attention of the consumers. There are many other companies also those are trying to increase their sales of their products in the Australian market. There is stiff competition in the market in terms of smartphones in Australia. Companies like Samsung, LG, HTC, Sony, etc. are competing with in terms of marketing strategies, features, pricing, etc. The main focus is marketing strategy that considers the consent of the consumers (Touré?Tillery & Fishbach, 2014).

Here comes the implementation of the theories of personality and motivation by Apple, Inc in order to sell their iPhones in the Australian market. The trait theory of personality in the field of consumer behaviour is important in determining the nature of shopping of the consumers that are coming to the stores as well the potential customers of smartphones. Trait theory will explain the nature and the characteristics of the Australian people. As it is already discussed earlier that consumers dwelling in a particular area possess some common traits that are essential for the company to formulate marketing strategies that will strike the minds of people in order to create awareness about various models of iPhones among the different segments of customers. Freud’s theory will help the company to know the inner thoughts of consumers of Apple iPhones (Giovannini, Xu & Thomas, 2015). Implementation of this theory in a customized way helps in formulating customized strategies of marketing i.e. formulation of different loyalty schemes, direct marketing strategies.

Apart from that, theories of motivation helps gaining the idea and the factors that are responsible for creating motivation among the minds of the consumers so that they can buy Apple iPhones. The factors can be both intrinsic and extrinsic. However, it can be said that both the factors are important. But the most important is the extrinsic factors of motivation. Apple can focus on the external motivation factors of the consumers rather than intrinsic factors of motivation. Out of all the theoretical frameworks described above, Apple will follow the escape seeking dichotomy model, in order to gaining the knowledge about the actual thinking behind the buying behaviour of the Australian consumers regarding smartphones (Papadimitriou, Apostolopoulou & Kaplanidou, 2015). Apple focusing on both the factors of personality and motivation will help in the developing different strategies that are effective in nature thereby improving the sales of the iPhones while increasing the revenue of the company.

Implementation of social change and innovation has a direct relationship with the consumer decision making process of the people of Australia. The individual influences of personality and motivation are responsible for creating both direct and indirect impact on formulating different types of marketing strategies in the Australian market. The marketing strategies that will be discussed in the perspective of Apple in the Australian market are 4Ps of marketing and STP (segmenting, targeting and positioning). Implementation of the motivational theories and personality theories in both these aspects will help not only in formulating marketing strategies but also determining the spending habits of the customers and their shopping attributes.

Product: In this perspective, product is Apple iPhone. New models of iPhones are developed on doing a proper market research regarding the consumer demand as well as the future trends of technology in the market of smartphones. Innovation is the main theme that the company follows while developing new strategies as well as new product (Schütte & Ciarlante, 2016).

Price: Pricing is the aspect that Apples masters. Apple always uses premium pricing for its new gadgets including iPhones. Pricing has no direct relationship with the consumer behaviour as the company knows about the condition of the market along with the Australian consumers. It is seen that by implementation of the personality theories and motivational theories, Apple has gathered the fact that customers will buy their products at the price charged by the company.

Place: Place refers to the presence of the company and its products in different places of Australia. By implementation of the theory of motivation and personality, Apple can determine the place where the demand of the product is high. The demands of the customers as well as the shopping patterns are also determined by customized implementation of the theories (Sandy, Gosling & Durant, 2013).

Promotion: Promotion of the Apple iPhones is innovative in nature. Apple usually targets a niche section of customers. Hence, theories of motivation and personality have illustrated the fact that the Australian consumers are flexible in both traditional and legacy media while collecting information about a certain product.

Segmentation of the Australian market is totally depended on the consumer behaviour and attributes of the Australians. Segmentation of Apple iPhones is based on demographic aspect, geographic factors, and psychological factors. These fragments of segmentation are based on the different natures of the consumers that can be analysed by using the theories of motivation and personality. Targeting of the product is also directly proportional to these theories. Apple iPhones are targeted to people of higher income group as well as middle income group people of Australia. Positioning of the iPhones of Apple will mostly require the details of the shopping attributes, decision-making procedure of the Australian customers (Gifford & Nilsson, 2014). The information collected after using these theories in real life will help in positioning of the product in the market as well as building effective strategies in the perspectives of promotion and positioning.

Conclusion

The study focuses on the behaviour and shopping attributes of the Australian consumers. It also illustrates about the individual factors like personality and motivation that is considered as important aspects in determining the shopping attributes of the Australian consumers. The personality theories and motivational theories are part of psychological analysis of mind. The psychological perspective is important as it deals with the human nature. The different theories implemented by Apple in developing the effective marketing strategies of the company in order to increase the sales of the company in the Australian market.

The marketing strategies include segmenting, positioning and targeting, four Ps of marketing, etc. The study describes the implementation of the different personality and motivation theories to gain the knowledge about the thinking procedure and buying behaviour of the Australian consumers. Marketing is an approach that covers almost all activities of the market as well as the company itself. In this aspect, the four Ps of marketing are focused especially on the part of promotion. It can be said that product development and pricing of the products of Apple is decided by the company itself. The popularity of the company is so high that it creates the demand of its product in the market. And people are eagerly waiting for the innovation of the company. It is also a point of consideration that though Apple focuses on the theory of innovation, but consumers and customers cannot be ignored. It is due to the spending nature of the Australian customers that is responsible for earning substantial amount of profit from the Australian market. Australian people usually possess high spending power as the average income of the people is high. It is due to the stable and growing economy of the country that enhances the spending power of the Australian consumers.

References

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