I was surprised at how accurate the VALS test was about me. It calculated my personal buying habits and showed that I was not as interested in shopping as I thought I would be. I am a very thrifty person and I only like to spend money when I absolutely have to. I have had some very trying times when it comes to my finances so I always take that into account. These results will more than likely not change over a period of time. The results are more relevant to an average of times that I have spent money. Eventually everything is going to evolve and the best way to measure consumer habits is to make sure that at the time of the tracking everything is relevant. The fluctuations in the economy, shifts in the demographics, capita income, and marketing advancements will cause the results to differentiate (VALS, 2015).
The Census is going to provide all of the information that a person might need about the growth of the population in a particular area. The target market will be identified for the different aspects of a family and their income status. The families that have at least two children or the empty nesters seem to have more reasons to have pets in their home. The objective is to market in the areas where the need for these things are more common. The Census looks at the areas where these particular individuals live. Most of the time, these people are going to live in the suburbs or the communities that are outside of the larger towns. Therefore, setting up a pet shop in the suburb is going to be more profitable for the manufacturers of the premium pet products (Census, 2015).
The consumers who have a delay in the decision making in their major purchases are going to be the people who are good at shopping for bargains. These people usually will not know the true of the product and they might have a negative attitude towards buying the products. There are three marketing strategies that a company could use to encourage the consumers to purchase items. The first marketing strategy is to develop new products that are going to entice the customers to buy it. The second marketing strategy is to change the pricing policy. The third marketing strategy is to renew the strategy for advertisements (Hawkins, 2013).
There are three different types of product placement. The first type is visual. Visual placement is when a product or service can be easily observed. The best example of visual placement is newspapers. The second type is spoken. Spoken placement is when a product or service is mentioned inside of a presentation. A good example of spoken placement is inside of a person’s speech. The third type is usage. Usage placement is when someone on TV will interact or handle the product and it will often use the visual or spoken placement. A good example of usage placement is any type of commercial (Sternin, 2002).
There are two attribute-based choices that consumers make when they are dealing with retail goods and services. The first one is the evaluative criteria. Evaluative criteria is the dimensions that a consumer will use in order to evaluate some of the features of choices. Most of the time, the consumers are going to compare this on the functional criterial. This criteria will be based on the product and the beliefs and attitudes of the consumer. The second one is individual judgement. Individual judgement is when a person does direct comparisons across the different brands like the price and features of the product. It might not always be accurate but it works for certain customers (Ashkenas, 2010).
There are two ways that the pricing structures are influenced by the attribute-based choices. The first way is the compensatory decision rules. Most of the time, they are the rational decisions that people make. The final values for attributes are computed when the compensatory decisions are made (Straub, 2003). The second way is through the non-compensatory decision rules. When a good performance on the evaluation, it does not compensate for a poor performance of non-compensatory decision rules. We typically make the non-compensatory decisions more than any other types of decisions that are made (Rao, 2010).
There are two main emotions that play a part in consumer behavior choices. The first emotion is happy. When a person is happy, then they are going to have a better attitude about shopping. Therefore, they might spend a lot of money when they go shopping when they are happy with their body. The second emotion is sadness. When a person is sad, they might think shopping will make them feel better. But most of the time, when a person gets there they might feel uncomfortable with their body which is going to make them feel more sad (Willcox, 2015).
References:
Ashkenas, R. (2010). Could Fewer Products Lead to More Profits? Retrieved on February 10,
2016, from: https://hbr.org/2010/12/could-fewer-products-lead-to-m.html.
Census. (2015). The United States Census Bureau. Retrieved on February 10, 2016, from
http://www.census.gov/.
Hawkins, D. I., Mothersbaugh, D., & Best, R. J. (2013). Consumer behavior: Building marketing
strategy with DDB Data Disk (12th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill / Irwin.
Rao, S. R. (2010). Non Compensatory Decisions Rules. Retrieved on February 10, 2016, from
http://www.citeman.com/11867-non-compensatory-decisions-rules.htm
Sternin, Jerry. (2002). A Respectful Approach to Solving Problems and Achieving Behavior
Change. Pr reporter, 45(20), May 20, 2002, pp. 1-2.
Straub, K. (2003, October). Decisions, decisions What's a poor user (and designer) to do?
Retrieved on February 10, 2016,
http://www.humanfactors.com/newsletters/decisions_decisions_what%27s_a_poor_user_
and_designer_to_do.asp.
VALS. (2015). The U.S. VALS Survey. Retrieved on February 10, 2016, from
http://www.strategicbusinessinsights.com/vals/presurvey.shtml
Willcox, Matthew. (2015). The Business of Choice: Marketing to Consumers’ Insights. Pearson
Education: Upple Saddle River, New Jersey.
