What makes consumers buy products

Subscribe for unlimited access. Create an account to read 2 more. Customer experience. It can be more important than word of mouth. Wilson, Emma K. Macdonald, and Shane Baxendale. Read more on Customer experience or related topic Market research. Hugh N. Emma K. Partner Center. An in-depth analysis of it can review historic buying behaviour, assess seasonal trends and market influences, and identify relevant up- and cross-selling opportunities. These insights can help you tailor specific offers to certain audience groups, ensuring that your entire customer base experiences convenience according to their individual preferences.

How does the modern consumer perceive value? These consumers are so immersed in their digital environments that they can connect with their favourite brands in more ways than one. Consumers are significantly influenced by the experience they have with a brand. There are so many ways you could add relevant value to your basic offer. A food and drink business could offer customers free samples and invite them to exclusive tasting events.

This is essential for standing out in competitive markets, retaining existing customers and winning new business. A winning sales strategy relies on information. Businesses that understand who their customers are and what makes them buy have a greater chance of success. Guides What Makes Consumers Buy? By Paul Black - Feb 14, Reviews, perceived value and convenience all count in modern buying decisions.

Share this article. Asking what needs or pain points someone has can make every encounter with a prospect, a customer, a patient, a partnership, or anybody else far more relevant and productive. The more closely you link products with needs, the more it will resonant with the right audiences. Many other elements of the business, from marketing to customer service, become much more natural and relevant when you know exactly where each of your products and services fits.

Sales will occur from properly selling your items and matching them with the requirements of your target audience. Another big reason customers buy stuff is to decrease their hassles and make their lives more comfortable.

Many buyers acquire new goods to help them do a task more quickly, easily, or affordably. They also do so to make their lives less unpleasant. Customers purchase products to protect themselves and to provide security. These motivators correlate with the second category on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, specifically the safety requirement. Many of the things we buy protect us. All types of insurance such as health, car, homeowners, renters, life, pet, and more protect our health and belongings.

Purchases calm future pain and shield us from the unknown. Many of the products we buy are intended to keep us safe. All forms of insurance, including health, auto, homeowners, renters, life, pet, and others, are designed to safeguard our health and possessions. Purchases in this category help us cope with the pain of future misfortune and protect us from uncertainty.

Feeling the need to have the latest and greatest thing around is a compelling motivator. The fact is, FOMO is real. The fear of missing out is unpleasant and somewhat scary. Many people purchase goods to get the benefits, rewards, and prestige other buyers have experienced.

If they don't follow, they miss out. And being left out is painful. Thus, FOMO is a remarkably potent motivator for consumers to buy.

Impulse buying may tie in, but FOMO focuses on current trends. During the time of a rapidly developing fad, customers tend to buy into the craze as a hedge against missing out. FOMO purchases give consumers a kind of immediate feeling of inclusion. Plus, they are able to showcase their new purchases and keep the FOMO going.

It's smart for brands to ride trends and develop some FOMO, especially for products catering to those born between and You are probably well acquainted with FOMO if your brand targets this age group.

Millennials experience FOMO more than any other consumer segment. Further, when millennials endure FOMO, they react quickly. Recent studies show that consumers who buy items have elements of their identity that they don't feel good about linked to their purchase. Obviously, there are hundreds of different backpacks available to choose from. In fact, good salespeople and marketing professionals know that providing you with too many choices can be so overwhelming, you might not buy anything at all.

Evaluative criteria Certain characteristics of products consumers consider when they are making buying decisions. Some of these characteristics are more important than others. For example, the size of the backpack and the price might be more important to you than the color—unless, say, the color is hot pink and you hate pink.

Osprey backpacks are known for their durability. Marketing professionals want to convince you that the evaluative criteria you are considering reflect the strengths of their products. For example, you might not have thought about the weight or durability of the backpack you want to buy. However, a backpack manufacturer such as Osprey might remind you through magazine ads, packaging information, and its Web site that you should pay attention to these features—features that happen to be key selling points of its backpacks.

Stage 4 is the point at which you decide what backpack to purchase. However, in addition to the backpack, you are probably also making other decisions at this stage, including where and how to purchase the backpack and on what terms.

Maybe the backpack was cheaper at one store than another, but the salesperson there was rude. Other decisions, particularly those related to big ticket items, are made at this point. At this point in the process you decide whether the backpack you purchased is everything it was cracked up to be. Hopefully it is. You begin to wonder whether you should have waited to get a better price, purchased something else, or gathered more information first.

Consumers commonly feel this way, which is a problem for sellers. Or, worse yet, you might tell everyone you know how bad the product was. For smaller items, they might offer a money back guarantee. Or, they might encourage their salespeople to tell you what a great purchase you made.

For larger items, companies might offer a warranty, along with instruction booklets, and a toll-free troubleshooting line to call.

Or they might have a salesperson call you to see if you need help with product. There was a time when neither manufacturers nor consumers thought much about how products got disposed of, so long as people bought them. How products are being disposed is becoming extremely important to consumers and society in general.

Computers and batteries, which leech chemicals into landfills, are a huge problem. You can buy it in a bottle. However, many people buy a concentrated form of it, put it in reusable pitchers or bottles, and add water. Windex has done something similar with its window cleaner.

Instead of buying new bottles of it all the time, you can purchase a concentrate and add water. You have probably noticed that most grocery stores now sell cloth bags consumers can reuse instead of continually using and discarding of new plastic or paper bags. Other companies are less concerned about conservation than they are about planned obsolescence A deliberate effort by companies to make their products obsolete, or unusable, after a period of time.

Planned obsolescence is a deliberate effort by companies to make their products obsolete, or unusable, after a period of time. When a software developer introduces a new version of product, older versions of it are usually designed to be incompatible with it.

For example, not all the formatting features are the same in Microsoft Word and Sometimes documents do not translate properly when opened in the newer version.

Consequently, you will be more inclined to upgrade to the new version so you can open all Word documents you receive. Products that are disposable are another way in which firms have managed to reduce the amount of time between purchases. Disposable lighters are an example. Do you know anyone today that owns a nondisposable lighter? Believe it or not, prior to the s, scarcely anyone could have imagined using a cheap disposable lighter.

There are many more disposable products today than there were in years past—including everything from bottled water and individually wrapped snacks to single-use eye drops and cell phones. Disposable lighters came into vogue in the United States in the s. You have probably thought about many products you want or need but never did much more than that. At yet other times, you skip stages 1 through 3 and buy products on impulse.

Purchasing a product with no planning or forethought is called impulse buying Purchases that occurs with no planning or forethought. Impulse buying brings up a concept called level of involvement —that is, how personally important or interested you are in consuming a product.

For example, you might see a roll of tape at a check-out stand and remember you need one. These are items you need, but they are low-involvement products. Low-involvement products are, however, inexpensive and pose a low risk to the buyer if she makes a mistake by purchasing them.

Consumers often engage in routine response behavior When consumers make automatic purchase decisions based on limited information or information they have gathered in the past.

You may not even think about other drink options at lunch because your routine is to order a Diet Coke, and you simply do it. By contrast, high-involvement products Products that carry a high price tag or high level of risk to the individual or group making the decision. A car, a house, and an insurance policy are examples. These items are not purchased often. High-involvement products can cause buyers a great deal of postpurchase dissonance if they are unsure about their purchases.

Companies that sell high-involvement products are aware of that postpurchase dissonance can be a problem. Limited problem solving falls somewhere in the middle.

Consumers engage in limited problem solving Purchasing decisions made based on consideration of some outside information. You might do a little research online and come to a decision relatively quickly. You might consider the choices available at your favorite retail outlet but not look at every backpack at every outlet before making a decision. In some way you shorten the decision-making process.

Consider a low- versus high-involvement product—say, purchasing a tube of toothpaste versus a new car. You might routinely buy your favorite brand of toothpaste, not thinking much about the purchase engage in routine response behavior , but not be willing to switch to another brand either.

When it comes to the car, you might engage in extensive problem solving but, again, only be willing to consider a certain brands or brands. Today, Lexus is the automotive brand that experiences the most customer loyalty. For a humorous, tongue-in-cheek look at why the brand reputation of American carmakers suffered in the s, check out this clip.

Consumer behavior looks at the many reasons why people buy things and later dispose of them. Consumers go through distinct buying phases when they purchases products: 1 realizing the need or want something, 2 searching for information about the item, 3 evaluating different products, 4 choosing a product and purchasing it, 5 using and evaluating the product after the purchase, and 6 disposing of the product. Low-involvement products are usually inexpensive and pose a low risk to the buyer if she makes a mistake by purchasing them.

High-involvement products carry a high risk to the buyer if they fail, are complex, or have high price tags. Limited-involvement products fall somewhere in between. Situational influences are temporary conditions that affect how buyers behave—whether they actually buy your product, buy additional products, or buy nothing at all from you.

You have undoubtedly been affected by all these factors at one time or another. Presumably, the longer you wander around a facility, the more you will spend. Grocery stores frequently place bread and milk products on the opposite ends of the stores because people often need both types of products. To buy both, they have to walk around an entire store, which of course, is loaded with other items they might see and purchase.

Store locations are another example of a physical factor. Starbucks has done a good job in terms of locating its stores. It has the process down to a science; you can scarcely drive a few miles down the road without passing a Starbucks. You can also buy cups of Starbucks coffee at many grocery stores and in airports—virtually any place where there is foot traffic.

Physical factors like these—the ones over which firms have control—are called atmospherics The physical aspects of the selling environment retailers try to control. In addition to store locations, they include the music played at stores, the lighting, temperature, and even the smells you experience.

The managers of the complex were trying to get you to stay for a while and have a look at their facilities. Mirrors near hotel elevators are another example. Take weather, for example. Rain and other types of weather can be a boon to some companies, like umbrella makers such as London Fog, but a problem for others. Beach resorts, outdoor concert venues, and golf courses suffer when the weather is rainy.

So do a lot of retail organizations—restaurants, clothing stores, and automobile dealers. Who wants to shop for a car in the rain or snow? Firms often attempt to deal with adverse physical factors such as bad weather by making their products more attractive during unattractive times.

For example, many resorts offer consumers discounts to travel to beach locations during hurricane season. Having an online presence is another way to cope with weather-related problems. What could be more comfortable than shopping at home? You can shop online for cars, too, and many restaurants take orders online and deliver. Crowding is another situational factor. Have you ever left a store and not purchased anything because it was just too crowded?

Some studies have shown that consumers feel better about retailers who attempt to prevent overcrowding in their stores. If people are lined up to buy something, you want to know why.

Should you get in line to buy it too? Herd behavior helped drive up the price of houses in the mids before the prices for them rapidly fell. Unfortunately, herd behavior has also led to the deaths of people. In , a store employee was trampled to death by an early morning crowd rushing into a Walmart to snap up holiday bargains. To some extent, how people react to crowding depends on their personal tolerance levels. Which rock concert would you rather attend: A sold-out concert in which the crowd is having a rocking good time?

Or a half-sold-out concert where you can perhaps move to a seat closer to the stage and not have to stand in line at the restrooms? Carol J. Gaumer and William C. Perhaps you have seen Girl Scouts selling cookies outside grocery stores and other retail establishments and purchased nothing from them. Are you going to turn her down, or be a friendly neighbor and buy a box or two? Pass the milk, please! Certain social situations can also make you less willing to buy products.

Where do you take your date? Some people might take a first date to Subway, but that first date might also be the last. Likewise, if you have turned down a drink or dessert on a date because you were worried about what the person you were with might have thought, your consumption was affected by your social situation. Anna S. The time of day, the time of year, and how much time consumers feel like they have to shop also affects what they buy. The goal is to get the products on the shelves when and where consumers want them.

Likewise, if you need customer service from Amazon. The reason you are shopping also affects the amount of time you will spend shopping. Are you making an emergency purchase? Are you shopping for a gift? In recent years, emergency clinics have sprung up in strip malls all over the country. Convenience is one reason.