There are various psychological influences which affect customers' decision while buying a product. Marketing express argues that a customer’s general behavior is largely determined by the psychological influence. Perception, being one of the key psychological influences, applies when the buyer is doing the selection, organization and interpretation of the information about the product so as to come up with a sound decision. Perceptual process has three steps. First, is selective exposure, this is a situation whereby a buyer selects some particular product features that are exposed attractive and disregarding others. This is followed by selective distortion where a buyer adjust the information to fits his or her preferred opinion. Lastly, is selective retention where the customer combines the information from the previous steps to come up with a decision. A good example is where the coca cola west Africa changes the packaging of its product. The company realized a huge improvement in its sales as the new packaging was more appealing. This totally changed the the customers’ perception of the product.
Perception can have positive or negative implication on the market depending on the previous experiences and knowledge of that particular product. For example, if the company is known for selling cheap product,it is very hard for a company to convince customers in case they establish the position of its market and decide to sell expensive products. The perception that the customer has is that any product that the company sells cheap. This subconsciously implies that the product is low quality or substandard. This is a negative implication on the company. On the other hand, if the company has been known for selling expensive and a quality product, it will still get customers even if the quality deteriorates. This is due to the pre-existing judgement that the customers have on the company.
Bibliography
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