Question
Identifying Good Personal Selling by Observing Consumer Behavior Individual Factors at Work.
Background
Effective personal selling is about shaping (some call it manipulating) Consumer Behavior. Knowing what individual variables a consumer possesses can help a sales person tailor their pitch or approach. For this assignment, you need to watch one hour of a network selling channel (QVC or Home Shopping Network) or watch at least an hour-long infomercial. Note which individual influences that the host targets in their pitch process. Do they use self concept, how the consumer would feel or how the consumer would look at among their peers?(to name a few) There is a plethora of ways that these hosts sell products. Look for those individual difference variables that are unique to the individual and those that influence behavior. These variables include:
- personality
- self-concept
- psychographics
- involvement
- motivation
- beliefs and attitudes
- perception
- learning
Personality can be thought of as those thoughts, feelings, traits, emotions, and characteristics that identify us as individuals. Self-concept, while an elusive concept, essentially describes all of the thoughts and feelings we have about ourselves. Psychographics attempts to understand consumers based on their lifestyle, i.e., how they live, work, and play. Psychographics also examines an individual's attitudes, opinions, and interests. Level of involvement can have a dramatic impact on consumer behavior. Essentially, this concept deals with the relative importance of a product, service, or decision from the perspective of the individual consumer. As the importance (involvement) increases, consumers tend to be more deliberate and careful in the decision-making process. Motivation is the driver of action. How a person manipulates perception can be applied through the perception process (do they physically show how the product is sensed and do they demonstrate use situations for interpretation and storage in a consumer's memory). Last, what type of learning techniques might the host use (classical or operant/instrumental) to give the consumer their marketing message?
Consumers are motivated to act by internal or external stimuli. Typically, these actions are directed at satisfying unfulfilled needs. There is a very strong linkage or relationship among attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. An attitude is a predisposition to react to a stimulus in a consistent manner. In other words, if we are favorably disposed to a product, we are likely to react in a positive way to anything related to that product. Marketers are very interested in attitudes and beliefs because they are highly correlated with behavior in the marketplace. Brand loyalty is one indication of a strong positive attitude in a consumer about a particular brand.
It is important to note that while these factors deal with individual behavior, marketers attempt to group consumers who share the same profile into segments that are large enough to be targeted.
Assignment
Watch one hour of a network selling channel (QVC or Home Shopping Network) or watch at least an hour-long infomercial. Identify the individual difference variables that influenced/shaped the hosts pitch. Identify (using headings) five of the seven factors discussed above that you believe apply. Based on your knowledge of the behavior of other consumers, discuss the individual difference factors that affected their sales approach giving examples of concepts that we've learned under each appropriate heading (ex. discuss repetition of message under the heading LEARNING when talking about classical conditioning). Other considerations to discuss under each individual characteristic heading would be how personal sellers use information regarding individual differences to form segments? In your conclusion argue if the personal seller used techniques to show/understanding differing consumer segments for using the product. Also in your conclusion rate the effectiveness of the host , explain the rating. Here are the headings you are required to utilize:
Introduction (explain where, who the host was by name, what time you watched and how you watched, what was the brand/product)
Answer
Identifying Good Personal Selling
Introduction
The report aims to taken into consideration the 30 mins informercial of AutoZone, presented by Shawn Diddy on Shop At Home Network, watched on YouTube, for identifying the way hosts try to influence customers by segmenting individuals on different variables. The product, the informercial is dealing with, is AutoZone’s Duralast Tool (Alexandris & Tsiotsou, 2012).
The different factors considered for attracting the different segments of customers, played a big role in moulding the sales pitch for the marketers trying to attract the relevant cystomers.
The report concludes by putting up an argument about how the personal seller used techniques to present different consumer segments for using the product and thereby the effectiveness of the seller is also rated accordingly.
Discussion
Individual Characteristics
There are different characteristics which consumers exhibit before being ready to purchase any product. These characteristics or driving forces greatly influence consumers in making decisions for purchasing any product based on which the marketers try to mould themselves to suit the requirements of the customers. The five different characteristics are explained below :
a) Personality:
Personality refers to the feelings, emotions, thoughts and characteristics which individuals exhibit and vary from one person to another and this has a big role to play in influencing the purchase behaviour (Erdo?mu? & Büdeyri-Turan, 2012). Buying patterns depend a lot on how each person perceives a product based on the way he/she sees the product as per the needs and requirements. If a person is unable to relate the product with his/her individual demands, then in all probability, the product will not get purchased.
b) Self-Concept:
Self-Concept is another characteristic which consumers which base their purchase behaviour on, which basically deals with the ideas and beliefs every individual has about themselves (Gunter & Furnham, 2014). If a person thinks that a product is not suitable for him/her, as they cannot associate themselves with the usage of the product, then again the products will not get purchased. On a similar basis, if a product goes well with the characteristics, which allow people to relate very easily on consuming the product, then automatically they will get influenced by the sellers’ approach.
c) Psychographics:
Psychographics refer to the understanding of customers’ psyche based on their lifestyles, how they lead their lives, work and play. They also deal with the way people behave, the attitude they generally show and the level of interest on different elements of life (Schiffman et al., 2013). These factors greatly influence the buying patterns as decision making has a lot to do with the psychological aspects of consumers. People should be able to correlate the products which marketers are pushing towards them, with the approach they follow while leading their lives.
d) Level Of Involvement:
Level of involvement is another important aspect which has a direct influence on the purchasing patterns of customers. This refers to the extent upto which, consumers feel that the products would be effective and serve their purpose as and when they purchase them. The relative importance of the products or services are measured, through a thorough analysis which ultimately acts as the guiding principle for enabling to make a purchase decision (Solomon, Russell-Bennett & Previte, 2012). Usefulness of products acts as the driving force and a forms a basis of understanding about whether to go ahead in buying the products.
e) Motivation
Motivation is a very important characteristic and an influencing factor behind the purchase decisions taken by the consumers. Motivation refers to the internal state, which plays a vital role and acts a catalyst to activate the desired behaviour required for fulfilling or satisfying the needs. Consumers’ buying patterns are deeply influenced by their motivational levels (Vlachos, 2012). Customers generally tend to buy things, when they either feel the requirement of the products on an urgent or they want to try things after being influenced by relatives and have provided positive feedback to them. Until and unless, consumers feel the urge from within, no matter how much a seller influences through different tactics, the products would not get sold.
Conclusion
Thus, the report concludes that the host was relatively effective in influencing customers to buy a set of DuraLast tools of AutoZone by citing the prices of certain tools and their respective features. The rating would be 5 out of 10. One problem was that the products were mainly suitable for people having fascination towards cars, who would be generally inclined towards buying Auto parts. Though the host stressed on the fact that customers should not look to purchase tools that are cheap as in some point of time, they would break and thus money would be wasted. Hence customers should buy one set of tools, which would be guaranteed to last for a lifetime.
References
Alexandris, K., & Tsiotsou, R. H. (2012). Segmenting soccer spectators by attachment levels: a psychographic profile based on team self-expression and involvement. European Sport Management Quarterly, 12(1), 65-81.
Erdo?mu?, ?., & Büdeyri-Turan, I. (2012). The role of personality congruence, perceived quality and prestige on ready-to-wear brand loyalty. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, 16(4), 399-417.
Gunter, B., & Furnham, A. (2014). Consumer Profiles (RLE Consumer Behaviour): An Introduction to Psychographics (Vol. 5). Routledge.
Schiffman, L., O'Cass, A., Paladino, A., & Carlson, J. (2013). Consumer behaviour. Pearson Higher Education AU.
Solomon, M., Russell-Bennett, R., & Previte, J. (2012). Consumer behaviour. Pearson Higher Education AU.
Vlachos, P. A. (2012). Corporate social performance and consumer-retailer emotional attachment: The moderating role of individual traits. European Journal of Marketing, 46(11/12), 1559-1580.
Bibliography
Books
Paul, J., & Rana, J. (2012). Consumer behavior and purchase intention for organic food. Journal of consumer Marketing, 29(6)
Shiau, W. L., & Luo, M. M. (2012). Factors affecting online group buying intention and satisfaction: A social exchange theory perspective. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(6), 2431-2444.
Jusoh, Z. M., & Ling, G. H. (2012). Factors influencing consumers’ attitude towards e-commerce purchases through online shopping. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 2(4), 223-230.
Websites
https://www.educba.com/4-factors-influencing-consumer-behaviour/
https://crab.rutgers.edu/~ckaufman/ConsumerbehaviorMotivationnotes.html
Journals
Moshrefjavadi, M. H., Dolatabadi, H. R., Nourbakhsh, M., Poursaeedi, A., & Asadollahi, A. (2012). An analysis of factors affecting on online shopping behavior of consumers. International Journal of Marketing Studies, 4(5), 81.
Solomon, M., Russell-Bennett, R., & Previte, J. (2012). Consumer behaviour. Pearson Higher Education AU.
