Consumer Behaviour: Study of Buying Decisions and Influencing Factors

This article explores the study of consumer behaviour, focusing on the buying decisions and factors that influence them. It discusses Malaysia Airlines and its market position, as well as the consumer decision-making process. It concludes with recommendations for improving brand influence.

Consumer Behaviour

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Background and information of the products or services.......................................................1
Analyse current market place.................................................................................................2
Factor influencing consumer behaviour.................................................................................3
Buying decision process.........................................................................................................4
Recommendation....................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Consumer behaviour is considered as a study of people in which analyse that how an
individual customer or group or businesses make decisions about choose, purchase, use as well
as dispose goods and services in order to fulfil their needs and requirements. It is defined as a
consumer actions within the market as well as inherent the motive for those actions. The study
of consumer behaviour is essential for the marketers in order to recognise the buying behaviour
of customers because it not only help in analysing what consumer buy but assist in understanding
why they buy it. For this Malaysia Airlines Berhad is chosen which is commonly known as
Malaysian Airline system. It is an airline operating flights which was commercially flight in
1947 and headquartered at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Under this report discuss about
the specific product or service, current market position, factors which influences consumer
behaviour as well as buying decision making of consumer.
MAIN BODY
Background and information of the products or services.
Malaysia Airlines Berhad known as a Malaysian airline system which branded as
Malaysia Airlines which is an airline operating flights that was founded in 1947 and
headquartered in Kuala Lumpur international airport, Sepang, Malaysia. As of 2019, the
company has total of 81 active aircraft in their fleet and revenue of $2.1B as well as 7159
employees. Also, the company raised $192.7M totals in their findings and compete with Air-
Asia, THAI, Singapore Airlines etc. The first Malaysian hospitality campaign, Malaysia Airlines
termed as a first taste of hospitality for the travellers. Since then they were seen most significant
improvements in their goods and services which includes the best of Malaysia cuisine, mobile
app and their improved websites along with the self-generated booking experience and the
coquette Golden Lounge with a luxurious Malaysian look and feel (Taufique and Vaithianathan,
2018). At the next level the experience is being extended beyond the flight tickets as they
introduced new app which named MHassistant which offers some additional features. Through
this app guests travelling with MA will be able to download MHvouchers which can be used for
shopping and amazing cuisine.
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Analyse current market place.
As Malaysia has become most challenging market for the airlines which set back by the
high competition as well as volatile demand. Mainly an uncertain future for the Malaysia
Airlines is a steady feature as six out of seven carriers were unprofitable in 2018, only the
seventh named Air-Asia generated small amount of profits in respective 4 years.
The passenger growth at Kuala Lumpur International slowed from the 11.2% in 2017 to
2.4% in 2018 which results the overall growth slowed from 10% and 3% in 2017 and 2018
respectively (Malaysia aviation: growth slows, profits under pressure, 2020).
The airlines service provider of Malaysia named as Malaysia Airlines capacity is to be
expected flat and the uncertainty of company's future is not healthy. As the government of
Malaysia is considering to sell the services of Malaysia Airlines and has stated that closing down
entirely is an alternate under the consideration.
Illustration 1: Malaysia Aviation : Growth slows, profit under pressure, 2020
(Source : Malaysia Aviation : Growth slows, profit under pressure, 2020)
The above graph shows the visitors and growth of aviation industry of Malaysia as it
shows that visitors were flat in 2018 which have declined slightly since 2014 but the Singapore
largest source market that mainly consists of visitors that enter via land crossing is excluding, the
number of visitors have raised significantly. The no. of Malaysia visitors were up 13% in the
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2018 to 15.2M. As china was termed as a main driver of Chinese / Hong Kong visitors surged by
29% to 2.9M.
Factor influencing consumer behaviour.
Consumer behaviour refers to the mental as well as emotional procedures and the
physical activity of individual related to the choose, buy, use as well as dispose of goods and
services in order to satisfy the needs and wants (Richard and Chebat, 2016). As all the consumers
have different sets of behaviour that influence their own decisions such as the size of market,
differences in taste and preferences, habits etc. All these are considered in major four categories
such as personal, psychological, cultural as well as social factors that will impacts on the
purchasing behaviour of customers. With respect of Malaysia Airline, there are several factors
which plays an important role in purchase or repurchase decisions which includes loyalty
programmes, baggage handling, timelines, price, safety, customer service, frequency of flights
etc. and it was found that the timeliness is mainly affect business travellers buying decisions.
Some of the factors are considered as below: Psychological influences: While talking about these factors then there are mainly four
things which effect consumers purchasing decisions such as attitudes, motivation,
perception and learning (Murphy and Dweck, 2016). Thus, the company emphasise on all
the psychological factors while providing airline services because all individual have
different type of perception towards the purchase. Personal influences: These kind of factors includes the social and economic status,
occupation, age, personality, education, gender as well as lifestyle of customer's which
can effect the buying decisions of clients individually or collectively. So the company
MA considers all the factors or influences while facilitate in-flight or other services as
they supply or customised their services on the customers demand because all people
demand differently (Lantos, 2015). Social influences: It is related to the social factors which involves family, status, roles,
reference groups and so on that need to be examined by the marketer of company in order
to meet the customers or target market requirements effectively. These kind of factors are
highly effect the purchasing behaviour of consumer and it turn reflect an endless inflows
through which individual's learn varied values of consumption of goods and services. It is
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to be considered by the company in order to attract large number of customers which
belongs to the different society and families so their behaviour are also different.
 Cultural influences: It includes the values, ideas as well as attributes of an individual
such as self respect, relationships, fulfilment, security, respects etc. that adopt in order to
communicate or interact as a member of society (Theotokis and Manganari, 2015). As
culture is learned or transmitted form one generation to the next. Basically these factors
includes race, religions, caste, traditions and values. Thus, company can focus on the
cultural factors because all people want unique culture while travelling so MA needs to
be maintain suitable and favourable culture in their flights which helps in increasing the
future customers.
As customer's analyse numerous factors before taking a buying decisions within the
airlines industry and selecting flights for travels. These factors includes social, cultural, personal
as well as psychological that will ascertain the buying decisions of buyers. With respect of the
airlines services of Malaysia Airlines the major influences among all factors is personal
influences because all have different requirements and take decisions as per their expectations or
priority. So company can facilitate customised services to their customers during in-flight
services so that they can able to satisfy different needs of the customers in a most effective
manner.
Buying decision process.
It is termed as a process of customers decisions where they makes their buying decisions
of specific goods and services (Juster, 2015). It begins from the identification of needs or
problems and end with the post purchase evaluation as it is considered as a journey of individual
or organisation for make purchases. As consumer decision making process assist marketers in
order to analyse the several factors which impacts on the consumer behaviour at the stages of
decision-making procedure that will help in successfully place company's products or services
within the market as well as get large attention of clients towards company's offerings. Thus, the
company Malaysia Airlines attract large number of customers towards their airlines services by
offering as per their requirements. So all the 5 stage of consumer decision making process can be
considered as follows: Need recognition: The first and foremost stage of consumer decision-making procedure
is to identify the requirements as it is an essential aspect that leads to the buying of goods
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and services (Xiang, Magnini and Fesenmaier, 2015). The customers demand is
considered as a trigger point of all purchasing decisions in which customers recognise
that what they actually want to purchase from the company. Thus, the company Malaysia
Airlines can supply airline services as per their customers demand by getting their
feedbacks that can assist in formulating appropriate strategies in order to satisfy their
needs. Gathering information: At this stage, customers search various informations related to
their requirements or problems and how they can be resolved those issues. Thus,
Malaysia Airlines company making or developing their website and webpage of their
airline services along with the all facilities and prices so that customers can able to get
detailed, clear and complete information in order to take buying decisions or buy tickets
without any doubts (Hofacker, Malthouse and Sultan, 2016). Evaluating alternatives: In this, evaluation of numerous options are done which can
fulfil the customers requirements that are mainly based on some parameters such as
prices, services, quality, food and so on. This will assist consumers to select the best
alternative among all the alternatives. For this stage, marketer of MA can facilitate
attractive discounts as well as offers on their prices of tickets so that travellers can able to
choose best possible option which is most suited as per their requirements. Actual purchase: At that level, the final decisions towards the purchase can be made by
the customers and they are paying money as a consideration of goods and services which
they have be selected (Zhang and Benyoucef, 2016). Thus, the marketer of Malaysia
Airline can influence the customers decisions towards the buying company's flights
tickets by providing details about the services that will be facilitated while customers
travelling so that customers can made their final decisions.
 Post purchase evaluation: This is related to the analysis of customer satisfaction which
comes after the consumption of goods or services. For the purpose of analysing post
purchase decisions the marketer of MA can get their customer's feedbacks and reviews
and take appropriate actions by making effective strategies so that customers can be
attracted towards the future decision as well.
As customers can be effected by the marketer of company at all the phases of decision-
making by understanding the customer's behaviour that are effected by the factors. For instance,
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when consumer make their decisions by considering pricing factor then marketer will bring or
offer attractive discounts facility on tickets prices (De Mooij, 2019). Also, several tools as a
strategies can be adopted in order to examine the factors which effect consumer's decisions that
involves feedbacks, reviews, ratings and so on that will assist marketer to make appropriate
changes and plan effective strategies which can attract huge number of travellers to buy tickets
and use their services. This will help in the long term survivability of company within the
competitive marketplace.
Recommendation.
Most of the businesses dive into the hoping of social media in order to raise the brand
awareness as well as attract large number of customers. So the company Malaysia Airlines can
adjust their social media tactics in order to increase their brand influences towards the consumer
buying decisions of airline services (Claiborne and Sirgy, 2015). As consumers focus on the
several dimensions such as assurance, brand image, e-ticketing, security, punctuality of schedule,
boarding, prices, in-flight facilities and so many elements that are related to the customer
satisfaction. So that the company MA needs to be developed so many things which are as
follows:
 For increasing the sales of Malaysia Airline tickets they should have to be updated with
the social media platform in order to facilitate effective customer services, sales and
promotion.
 The company should facilitates travel offers to their customers as per their demand of
customised basis.
 MA will develop a positive and strong customer relationship by interacting with them
appropriately in order to ensure that the needs of the consumers are met.
 The company needs to identify the pain and gain points of their airline services which is
to be given to the customers.
 The company MA also need to be considered the feedbacks and reviews of their
customers who already experience their services which should be required to formulate
effective strategies for future.
 MA should timely response on the complaints and issues of their customers which they
faced before, while and after consuming the services.
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CONCLUSION
It can be viewed from the above report that the study of consumer behaviour is essential
for all the organisation as it helps in knowing about the buying behaviour of individual customer
or businesses. In order to know about the consumer behaviour detailed studied about the
information of goods and services along with the present market of that specific product or
industry. Also, analyse those factors which influence on the consumer behaviour such as
psychological, social, cultural as well and also studied about the purchasing decision procedure
of consumers. Lastly, facilitates some recommendations which is to be needed for the increasing
the sales on the basis of those factors that impacts on the consumer's decision making.
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REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Claiborne, C. B. and Sirgy, M. J., 2015. Self-image congruence as a model of consumer attitude
formation and behavior: A conceptual review and guide for future research. In
Proceedings of the 1990 academy of marketing science (AMS) annual conference (pp.
1-7). Springer, Cham.
De Mooij, M., 2019. Consumer behavior and culture: Consequences for global marketing and
advertising. SAGE Publications Limited.
Hofacker, C. F., Malthouse, E. C. and Sultan, F., 2016. Big data and consumer behavior:
Imminent opportunities. Journal of Consumer Marketing.
Juster, F. T., 2015. Anticipations and purchases: An analysis of consumer behavior. Princeton
University Press.
Lantos, G. P., 2015. Consumer behavior in action: Real-life applications for marketing
managers. Routledge.
Murphy, M. C. and Dweck, C. S., 2016. Mindsets shape consumer behavior. Journal of
Consumer Psychology. 26(1). pp.127-136.
Richard, M. O. and Chebat, J. C., 2016. Modeling online consumer behavior: Preeminence of
emotions and moderating influences of need for cognition and optimal stimulation level.
Journal of Business Research. 69(2). pp.541-553.
Taufique, K. M. R. and Vaithianathan, S., 2018. A fresh look at understanding Green consumer
behavior among young urban Indian consumers through the lens of Theory of Planned
Behavior. Journal of cleaner production. 183. pp.46-55.
Theotokis, A. and Manganari, E., 2015. The impact of choice architecture on sustainable
consumer behavior: The role of guilt. Journal of Business Ethics. 131(2). pp.423-437.
Xiang, Z., Magnini, V. P. and Fesenmaier, D. R., 2015. Information technology and consumer
behavior in travel and tourism: Insights from travel planning using the internet. Journal
of Retailing and Consumer Services. 22. pp.244-249.
Zhang, K. Z. and Benyoucef, M., 2016. Consumer behavior in social commerce: A literature
review. Decision Support Systems. 86. pp.95-108.
Online
Malaysia aviation: growth slows, profits under pressure. 2020. [Online] Available through:
<https://centreforaviation.com/analysis/reports/malaysia-aviation-growth-slows-profits-
under-pressure-463080>.
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