For marketers, understanding the buying behaviour of consumers is vital to gaining a better understanding of the factors that influence consumer decisions. Did you know consumer purchasing decisions are heavily influenced by environmental factors?
To understand how the purchase environment impacts consumer behaviour, let’s first understand what consumer behaviour is. An emerging marketing discipline, the concept of consumer behaviour, emerged in the 1940s and 1950s. It studies consumers and their methods of selecting, consuming, and disposing of products and services. Consumer behaviour also studies how consumers’ emotional, mental, and behavioural responses can influence their purchase behaviour.
Based on the above paragraph, consumer behaviour can be visualised as a set of numbers or data representing a very rational journey along the so-called purchase funnel, from searching for a product or service to buying that product or service.
However, studies have shown that human nature is not entirely rational, and consumer behaviour is therefore not easy to forecast. A customer will buy a product or service as an outcome of many aspects of a consumer, such as motivation, desire, and purchase triggers.
Consumer behaviour aspects are the qualities of a customer that influence their response to a purchase cue or stimulus. This response determines the consumer’s decision to buy or not to buy. The following are six key aspects of consumer behaviour that marketers should be aware of:
A customer’s purchase decisions are greatly influenced by various external influences or factors, which can affect their rational decision-making ability. You will understand if you have ever been to an Apple or Nike store. The store layouts, product presentations and visual merchandising are designed to draw and retain customers in the store and get them to purchase and sometimes purchase more than what they intended.
Apple Store in Istanbul, Turkey
The way customers engage with these external influences (or “environmental stimuli”) has a powerful impact on their purchase patterns. Let us look at some of the crucial external influences on consumer behaviour:
Marketers consider all these factors when designing their brands’ purchase environment to influence consumer behaviour. The purchase environment impacts consumer behaviour through actions that shape the business’s and its customers’ relationship.
Marketers also use the “stimulus–organism–response (S-O-R) framework” to push consumers to make positive or favourable purchase decisions. The stimulus–organism–response framework uses the consumer’s emotional state to trigger impulsive purchase decisions. The flow is in the form of retail environment characteristics. This results in a positive emotional response from the consumer, leading to impulsive purchasing.
Senses overstimulated by a positive, exciting, and stimulating environment increase the chance of impulse buying. This makes consumers lose the ability to control their buying impulses. In turn, this increases the chances of impulse purchases.
It is important to note that overstimulation caused in a crowded space can have negative associations and have the opposite effect on purchase behaviour. It can lead to a reduction in impulse purchases. Furthermore, it can lead to a situation where the consumer prefers not to go to that retail space or store.
Nike Store in Dubai, UAE
Image reference: https://www.nike.com/ae/retail/s/nike-mirdiff-city-centre
Finally, the purchase environment must consider the 4 Ps of marketing:
It is essential to keep in mind that a large number of external factors influence consumers. One of the most important influences on consumer behaviour is the environment in which they purchase goods. The sensory stimulation created by a store environment greatly influences consumer behaviour, especially impulse buying.
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