Business

13 Pages 3278 Words

marketers must first understand how buyers’ characteristics influence perception of products, and secondly, how buyers make decisions. Consumer behaviour includes the studies of any behaviour, internal or external, mental and physical, that influence purchase. Consumer motivation is simply a drive to achieve goals, to satisfy needs and wants. A need being, “Any unsatisfactory condition of the consumer that leads him or her to action that will make the condition better”, while wants are, “desires to obtain more satisfaction than is absolutely necessary” (Czinkota et. al, 2000, pg. 138). Maslow's Theory of Motivation sought to explain why consumers are driven by needs. Maslow suggested consumer needs are arranged in a hierarchy. A person will try to satisfy the most important need before attempting to satisfy the next. From this model, all consumers will attempt, in a world of scarcity, to best fill needs from basic physiological up to self-actualising needs (Kotler & Armstrong, 1996). In third world countries, a basic need would be fire to cook meals. In developed countries, it could be argued that time is a scarce resource and microwave ovens are needed. A Hyundai may be all that is ‘needed’ for transport to work, but an executive may ‘want’ a BMW, given the different consumer needs and wants. Due to this human factor, demand for products will never be uniform locally, much less on a global scale. Potential consumers will react differently depending on a host of issues including culture, genetics, climate and economics. These and many more physical and mental aspects of consumers and their environment fall within the realm of marketing. In all but the strictest command economies, there exists the fundamental human right of freedom. Consumers are free to make decisions - needs and wants are not pre-determined by government. If, as consumers, a need or want is perceived, human beings posses the ability to make decisions...