Purchase behaviour of customers and the role of Reference groups in influencing the purchasing behavior of customers.

We live in a world where everything whatever happens around us causes impact on us physiologically and emotionally which in turns forms,shapes and drives our attitudes,liking for or disliking against certain things.

Actually the motive for every action is the intent or the desire to get something of a positive nature.

When ever we perform a certain action it can have two outcomes i.e Positive Reinforcement and negative reinforcement and on the outcome of the reward whether positive or negative decides whether we are going to perform the same action again or not.

On the basis of the reward outcomes one time purchases,repeat purchases and customer loyalty depends.

In simple terms we can understand it that in case of Positive reinforcement the reward is of the positive nature while negative reinforcement can be taken as a punishment.

The experience we gets stored in our memory for a long time and whenever we see or performs a certain similar type of action,the learned predisposition tells us that whether it will be beneficial or not.

Example:

Suppose Ashish in his early childhood days used to get a chocolate as a reward for performing top in the class and for his poor performance sometimes teacher used to punish him.

This "chocolate " as  a reward will create a positive impact on Ashish and it will frame his attitude that by Performing outstanding in the class he shall get a chocolate. (Positive reinforcement) while if poorly performed he will get punishment from the teacher (undesired outcome) which will lead to negative reinforcement.

Hence this reward outcome desired or undesired will form his future behavior as he will like to have a good reward rather than that of bad one.

We all are consumers and we purchase different items based on our requirement from time to time.

From the low involvement products that is a Washing machine,a television or water purifier
to High Involvement products like Latops,Cars etc.we take huge precautions.

We purchase products to satisfy our needs.Basically the purchase decision is not an independent one but it is interdependent on many more factors.
It takes several things in account prior to trigger the purchase decision.

Marketer plays a vital role here also." A Marketer acts like a teacher.Marketeers are in the business of making consumers to meet  their unrecognised needs,teaches them about the products that will satisfy those needs and also helps them to learn the usage of the products and also teaches them how to dispose them off."

Hence First,Marketer send its target market  a communication without letting him know that he is being targetted .Let us take the example of Television Advertisements.

Example;
Let us take the example of Fair and lovely Cream.Its Target markets were the women with low self esteem.
We know that in most of the places let it be Corporates,Jobs at airlines the women with black completion are turned down irrespective of the reason that how much talented they are.
Not only to this in certain places,a women with dark complexion worries her parents because it means that they have to pay high dowry to get her married (punishment) while as the fair complexion girls are considered gift as they find jobs easily let it be at big corporate houses and even in aviation sector.

As i already told you in my earlier posts,"Jo dikhta hai woh bikta hai...."





Girl with dark complexion...Nandita Das










Girl with fair complexion...Nandita Das






It is a bias in our society that fair people gets most of the preferences and opportunities where as the industry wants the talented one irrespective of the colour of the skin what a person has got...

Hence the Fair and lovely took the initiative by targeting the self esteem of the girls with dark complexion by telling that could achieve heights.The marketers without letting the target audiences know that their self esteem is being lowered and they are being targeted as this will turn off the customers and they will simply associate black word with fair and lovely as a product.The people will tend to think that the cream is for blacks.No one wants to admit he is of dark complexion even if he knows she is not farer.No one wants to look or hear that she is ugly.

So it can be a blunder and a total failure on the product positioning.
Hence a marketer targets and lowers down the self esteem of his target consumers and then suggest measures to hike it.
Such a beautiful art is this marketing!!



See in the above given add,the marketer is indirectly telling them in a praising and in a motivating manner that no doubt they are dark buy yet they are beautiful in their own way....

Hence a marketer is making its target consumers learn.
Reference group can be of two types:
1) Primary reference group.
2) Secondary reference group.

Primary Reference group: A primary reference group includes immediate family members,friends i.e it is a group with whom an individual communicates regularly.

Secondary Reference groups: It may include or other persons with whom the interactions are very limited or less we can say.

Hence when a potential customer thinks to buy a product from the market,the biggest challenge which he faces is to buy from which company when all the competitors are on the same line,
So what a consumer does,he approaches the expert persons or opinion leaders to seek information regarding the product he wishes to buy.

Suppose i want to buy a Ferrari.I will just find someone in my immediate reference groups or someone whom we think as an opinion leader or an expert possibility who has got the good information about the cars or who has got one,will obviously not inquire about the mileage because it wont matter to a Ferrari owner but the maintenance,Post delivery service procedures,Emi's etc. and whether it will be a good decision to buy it or not.
Reference groups with whom we are associated helps framing our attitude towards a product because we often keep associated with our social groups.

We can assume it with a an another situation:
If there are families living in 10 different flats in an apartment and 8  families are using a specific car then the 9th and the 10th family are most probably going to buy the same car.Hence social groups causes great impact on the consumers mind .Moreover to protect themselves with the product dissonance they mostly take the opinion of the reference groups.

Marketers face a challenging situation when directing a certain information of the product to the reference groups.It is not necessary that the reference group may understand or perceive the message of the marketer in the same sense as it has been transmitted and transmit the same to the target persons in a positive manner.Different people have different thinking ability which depends on their ability to think,understand which is based on their perceptions,valuation,beliefs,understanding,learning about a brand or a product.
Hence challenge lies with forwarding the same intent of the marketer to the reference groups and target groups in which it is transmitted and to ensure that the audiences perceive the same picture as marketer wants them to see it.

The lengthy advertisements you must have seen on the Television that lasts for 30 min showing every detail of the product ,its specifications,pricing,warranty,purchase information,warranty information,delivery information,Payment terms are not for normal consumers.

Those advertisements are called "Infomercials".
They are shown to develop and change the attitude, Perception of the reference groups and opinion leaders positively about the product and the brand itself.

As it is said that,A negative word of mouth travels 10X faster than a positive word of mouth.

Supply Chain Management

Role of Supply Chain Management 

in Marketing...

Disclaimer !  The content provided on this blog is for informational purposes only. The owner of this blog makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site.This blog contains the personal viewpoints of the the owner regarding the different strategies followed by the marketers and have not been copied from any source and he will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information.The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information.

Supply Chain Management plays a dynamic role in the overall marketing process of a product.Supply chain is the backbone of the modern industrial world.Managing a supply chain in an effective and in an efficient way is a very tough job. Supply chain involves from the starting of the procurement of raw materials required for the manufacturing of a product till its final consumption.
SCM involves all the processes like choosing of the best suppliers via e-sourcing, e-tendering for the procurement of the raw materials,the processes involved in the production of goods termed as work in progress till the final product is made.
It's not only limited to this only,from the factories the movement of the product through various distribution channels like distributors-wholesalers-retailers-in a very cost effective way so that the product gets delivered to the end customer in an efficient and in a cost effective way constitutes our supply chain.
The more efficient and an effective supply chain an organisation is having,the more profitable it will be getting in future.

Have you ever wondered that how coca cola is able to sell its ₹ 10 INR bottle of coke at the same price across pan India when there are so many costs associated like transportation cost,distribution costs,govt.taxes.
How it is able to maintain its unique price when distribution channel partners have also a certain share in it.
From this example we all could have understood that how efficient and cost effective the coca cola must have its supply chain.
Managers of these companies often do a strong brain storming,many times they do fail but failure always leads to learning. It teaches in a more better way.As of till date there is no programmed book for managing a supply chain which will ensure you that your supply chain will get fully optimised but it is with the continuous,integrated and with the mutual  help of suppliers and the company.
So for this reason the Supply chain acts like the beads of the chain.if even one bead of a chain is broken,it will make the whole chain weak and  vulnerable to the external competitors. It.It can create a threat and no doubt your product will come in a huge crisis.

Let me try to give you some insight about this:-
I am going to take an example of a simple packaged mineral water."Aquafina".

You know that this bottle is being sold in indian markets at ₹ 20.
This is the final product price and it is entirely different from the actual costs that are involved in the manufacturing of a bottle.
I won't say that you will earn ₹ 15 INR per bottle,if i say this then next morning most of my viewers would start selling the same:-).
But the actual cost of the mineral water is very low and it would not more than ₹1.50 INR .But the manufacturing costs associated and  involved are more, as visible to the naked eyes of the consumers but we should know that there is a blueprint of processes that need to be followed step by step.

See what things we must need to manufacture a bottle.

You need a plastic bottle.You get this plastics from the suppliers of the plastic material.


Then you definately need a cap as a lid on the bottle.You get these from its own suppliers.

After it you would also need to label it and hence you need a labelling sticker like this:-



We also need our core product that is water to be filled in these bottles.So we need pure water that can be obtained by the water filtration plant.Hence cost of the machinery of the filteration plant is also involved.

                                                                            Not limited to only this,you need to put these bottles into big boxes so that they can be protected from breakage.

To do all things,we need employees,staff workers to do these jobs.
We also need workers for cleaning jobs to clean the untidy places so costs get involved over there also.
Cost of energy is also involved because machines require electricity to operate,even cost of the building where inventories are being stored add up to costs.

After all these things they need to be carried from the factory chambers to the trucks to be transported and hence we need fort lifts.



To operate these we need fuel and an operator too.



Even after that after the trucks are fully loaded,the bottles are transported and are handled to distributors-retailers and they have their own profits set in addition to the costs.

The costs associated with loading,unloading of materials,govt.taxes,cost of fuel,salary of employees,materials needed at the workplace,energy costs and other variable costs are involved in the supply chain.



You will also need a dedicated customer care number to answer the queries of the customers and as well as listen to their complaints as well.

Hence to optimise all these costs associated and to make the best use of the scare resources available with the organisation, companies do hard efforts to make their product survive in such a cut throat competitive world...