Consumer Behavior Analysis

This assignment delves into the realm of consumer behavior analysis, focusing specifically on consumer search behavior in online environments. It examines the key factors that influence consumers' online shopping decisions, such as product information, reviews, and pricing. The analysis also explores the implications of these findings for effective marketing strategies in the digital age.

MARKETING
INTELLIGENCE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................1
TASK 1......................................................................................................................................1
AC 1.1, 1.2 Main stages of purchase decision-making process and theories of buyer.........1
behaviour in terms of individuals and markets......................................................................1
AC 1.3 Factors affect buyer behaviour..................................................................................2
AC 1.4 Relationship between brand loyalty, corporate image and repeat purchasing..........3
TASK 2......................................................................................................................................4
AC 2.1, 2.4 Different types of market research techniques and prepare a marketing plan...4
AC 4.1 Evaluation of techniques use to assess customer response.......................................5
AC 2.2 Use secondary sources to achieve the research objectives.......................................6
AC 4.2, 4.3 Design a customer satisfaction survey...............................................................6
AC 2.3 Asses the Validity and reliability of research findings.............................................8
TASK 3......................................................................................................................................8
AC 3.1 Assessment of market size trends.............................................................................8
AC 3.2 Competitive analysis of Google................................................................................9
AC 3.3 Opportunities and threats for Google........................................................................9
CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
In the present age of fierce business competition, marketing plays a major role in the
organizational success. Marketing intelligence is the process of gathering market information
and analyse them to take better business decisions. Marketing manager has the responsibility
to collect required market related information about the company and use them in the
decision making process. It helps to make analysis of external business environment such as
competitors, customers and market behaviour. The present project report aims at
understanding the importance of market intelligence in the company's growth. Further, it also
helps to understand the purchase decision making process and the contribution of market
research techniques towards making effective marketing plans.
TASK 1
AC 1.1, 1.2 Main stages of purchase decision-making process and theories of buyer
Behaviour in terms of individuals and markets
Purchase decision-making process: It consists of various stages that are explained
here under:
Figure 1: Decision making process
(Source: Consumer Decision Making Process for your Product/service, n.d.)
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Recognising the customer needs: The first step is to identify consumer’s needs which
have to be satisfied. It includes functional need, social need and changing need. Functional
need refers to the product’s features and functions while social need refers to the integration
and belongingness need. While, changing need relates to the customer’s desires to make
some sort of changes in the products and services.
Searching information: At this stage, consumers search for the available products or
services that contribute to fulfil their needs (Sharda, Delen and Turban, 2013). Previous
customer experience helps to seek internal information, while external information can be
gathered from friends, family, other consumer’s reviews and business sources such as
advertisement.
Alternative evaluation: Once the information has been collected, then users make
evaluation of it and determine the most suitable alternative that fulfils their desires in an
appropriate manner. They compare the product’s prices, quality and other factors in order to
evaluate that product.
Selection of the alternative: After identifying the most suitable alternative, customers
make use of it to accomplish their wants (Flekel, 2013). Purchase decision may be based on
the historical experiences and other favourable factors.
Post purchase behaviour: Once, the decision has been taken and users have also
consumed the product, then they analyse that in what extent product satisfies their
expectations (Gracia and Magistris, 2013). If, product provides high satisfactory results to
them then their purchase decision will be considered good and creates product brand image.
Theories of buying behaviour: Different individuals need different products and
services with different characteristics, this behaviour is known as buyer behaviour.
Generic theory: Under the generic business model, buyers recognise their needs,
wants as well as desires and fulfil those needs through taking effective buying decisions.
Initially, people determine their desires, search market information, evaluate various existed
products with their needs and select the best among them. They investigate the available
products to accomplish their desires and after that, appropriate purchase decisions will be
take though making proper analysis (Challagalla, Murtha and Jaworski, 2014). It can be done
through analysing the product’s features, characteristics, prices, quality and other factors.
According to the theory, post purchase behaviour also gains significant importance under the
buying behaviour. It refers to the consumer’s feeling after using the product; if it satisfies
their desires then consumer will be more likely to purchase the product in future.
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Cultural theory: The theory says that culture impacts the buying behaviour of
individuals in a great manner. In the community, culture is defined as a combination of
values, beliefs and people’s attitude. As per the theory, social class factors such as
occupation, income and level of education greatly influence the consumer’s buying
behaviour. Further, leader’s opinion also affects the purchasing decision of people because of
their position and knowledge.
Rational Actor Theory: This is the classical theory of buying behaviour. The theory
says that people make their buying decisions on the basis of analysing their self-interest
(Hollensen, 2015). This principle can be applied to both the individual and corporation. It
assumes that people always take logical buying decisions and purchase the product that
provides greatest benefit or higher satisfaction to them.
AC 1.3 Factors affect buyer behaviour
Personal factors: Individual factors consist of people interests, choices and
preferences. Moreover, it includes customer economic situation, age, personality, lifestyle
and their occupations (Javadi and et.al, 2012). Consumers demand different products and
services at different age stages. Moreover, under the economic situation, upper class
customers prefer more expensive products than middle or lower class groups. Along with
this, individuals who have improved lifestyle will demand luxurious products while other
desire to purchase inexpensive products.
Social factors: Every individual is a part of society hence; their buying decisions are
very much affected by the social factors. It includes the impact of references groups, family
and social status (Babin and Zikmund, 2015). People demand products according to their
social status. For instance: high class society will have a better life style and higher income
henceforth, they prefer expensive products.
Cultural factors: Culture refers to identifying the individual’s opinions, values,
attitudes and beliefs. Different individuals who are following different culture will demand
differ products and services. It tends to vary from country to country henceforth, marketers
have to assess cultural factors to make effective marketing plan.
AC 1.4 Relationship between brand loyalty, corporate image and repeat purchasing
Brand loyalty, corporate image and repeat purchasing are interrelated terms.
Explanation of these is as follows:
Brand loyalty: It refers to customer’s loyalty, dedication, commitment and trust
towards the organization. Strong customer loyalty can be developed through satisfying
customer’s desires on the continuous basis. Loyal consumers do not consider other brands as
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well as offerings in their buying decisions. They always like to use a specified or particular
brand.
Corporate image: Company's reputation helps to build the corporate image of
business. It is affected by various factors such as core business, brand performance,
technological innovations, public relationship and financial performance. For instance: if a
company's brand is performing very well in the market then, it contributes to improve the
corporate image of it (Hair and Lukas, 2014). Moreover, it can be developed through using
updated as well as innovated technology and maintaining good relationship with the public
such as customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.
Repeat purchasing: Initially, consumers use the company's offering to test it and if,
their needs are satisfied then they intend to purchase the product again. Thus, repeat
purchasing refers to consume same products and services again and again.
Thus, it is clear that repeat purchasing will contribute to build customer trust on the
brand and create brand loyalty. Moreover, brand loyalty will result in building the corporate
image of company. The reason behind such is that regular customer satisfaction helps to build
customer loyalty to a great extent. It also provides benefit to attract new customers as
satisfied customers will recommend other to use such products (Zikmund and et.al, 2012).
This in turn, will create brand loyalty and build good corporate image in the market. Thus,
company can build effective marketing plans and strategies to develop an impressive
corporate image in the widespread community.
TASK 2
AC 2.1, 2.4 Different types of market research techniques and prepare a marketing plan
Market research techniques: Marketing research is the process of gathering required
business information about the target market.
Survey: Surveys can be conducted by Sainsbury in target market and gather
information at a wider place (Ritchie and et.al, 2013). Questionnaire can be used in it through
constructing necessary questions and filled up by the respondents.
Interview method: It provides in-depth information about the consumers. In this
technique, Sainsbury marketer can collect information through asking questions from the
respondent.
Observations: In this method, Sainsbury can know the consumer buying behaviour
through observing them at their retail stores (Glance and et.al, 2005). Video recording and
conversation with the shopkeeper is the way of observations.
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Focus group: This technique helps to gather opinion from different people from
different market through discussions. Moderator is the person who records the consumer
respondent and analyst make use of them to identify the customer requirement.
Research plan:
Background: Sainsbury is a largest UK retail organization operating in 1000 stores
with 440 convenience stores. The great reason of company's success is it regularly focuses on
makes consumer live easier by offering qualitative products and services as fair prices.
Rationale: Research plan has been conducted to assess the market and growth
potential of Sainsbury.
Research aim: To provide an insight in determining the customer satisfaction level
from using the company's offered products.
Research methodology: Survey methodology has been applied for market research
purpose. Questionnaire has been constructed to determine the customer buying behaviour.
Analysis of data: Collected data has been analysed to assess customer response
towards the Sainsbury products and services. Both the quantitative and qualitative techniques
will be used for analysis purpose.
Budget: Sainsbury allotted 8000£ for conducting a market research within set time
period.
Time frame is presented here through constructing Gantt chart:
1st
Week
2nd Week 3rd Week 4th Week 5th Week
Research objectives
Searching
information
Research
methodology
Collection of
primary and
secondary sources
Analysis of data
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Review the results
AC 4.1 Evaluation of techniques use to assess customer response
Survey methodology: In context to Sainsbury, surveys have been conducted on the
basis of questionnaire method to make market research. Questionnaire consists of various set
of open and close ended questions to gather required information. The benefit of the method
is that it provides reliable and prominent information as filled by customer themselves.
Moreover, it provides excessive security to the respondents and eliminates bias. In context to
Sainsbury, 40 customers have been surveyed and their response has been gathered using
questionnaire. It provides assistance to Sainsbury to understand consumer responses and their
purchase experiences. All the customer fill up the questions and provide updated information
about their buying behaviour and experiences (Pan, Leeman and Fond, 2013). The company
determine numerous factors that affect the consumer purchasing decisions. Further, the
survey provides assistance to identify the customer complaints, opinion, feedbacks and their
suggestions in order to make product improvement. Another, the method generates
information at wider geographical place. This is because web questionnaire has been sent to
the respondents at distinct places through using e-mail facilities. Furthermore, it provides
benefit as it is a cost effective method for Sainsbury and utilize lower the monetary resources
of company.
AC 2.2 Use secondary sources to achieve the research objectives
Sainsbury can collect data from historical records, web information, scholarly articles,
economic reports and other published governmental reports. Our research objective is to
determine the market opportunities for Sainsbury. Thus, through using the historical business
sales and profit records and retail industrial records, Sainsbury can determine the previous
customer demand. Further, it helps to forecast future market trend as increasing the product
demand and sales will indicate high opportunities to Sainsbury for future growth. Another,
books provide assistance in market segmentation on the basis of various demographic and
geographical factors such as age, population, income, gender and occupation (Hippler,
Schwarz and Sudman, 2012). The governmental and published economic reports provide
assistance to analyse the factors that affect company's growth in terms of sales. Furthermore,
economic journals help to gather information about economic factors such as inflation and
GDP. Thus, Sainsbury make use of it to analyse the consumer purchasing power and take
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effective pricing decision. The benefit of the technique is that it consumes less time and
money of the investigator in data collection as they are already available.
AC 4.2, 4.3 Design a customer satisfaction survey
Name:______________
Age:________________
Gender:______________
Occupation:_______________
1. How often do you make use of the Sainsbury product?
 Frequently
 Regularly
 Very often
2. How much money do you often used to spend on Sainsbury's products in a week?
 Less than 20£
 Between 20£ to 30£
 More than 30£
3. Which is the most important factor that affects your pricing decisions?
 Price
 Quality
 Any other factor (Kindly specify)___________
4. How much do you satisfied with the offered products and services of the Sainsbury?
 Strongly satisfied
 Satisfied
 Not satisfied
5. In what extent do you satisfied with the quality of Sainsbury's product?
 Strongly satisfied
 Satisfied
 Not satisfied
6. Will you intend to purchase Sainsbury's product in future?
 Yes
 No
7. Do you recommend your family, friends and others to use Sainsbury's product?
 Yes
 No
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8. Do you want to give any suggestion to Sainsbury for fulfilling your needs in an effective
way?
Please recommend______________________________
Review the success: Out of the 40 respondents, 35 replied that they are strongly
satisfied with the Sainsbury's product. Thus, 87.5% of the respondents are strongly satisfied
from using company's product. They purchase the company's products on a regular basis and
intend to buy in future also. Large number of customers replied that Sainsbury is offering the
qualitative products to the consumers. In addition to it, price is the most important factor that
affects their buying behaviour and buyers are currently satisfied with the prices as they
replied that Sainsbury is providing products at affordable prices. Our research aim which
about knows the customer satisfaction survey is highly satisfied with the research. Thus, it
can be said that there is a great chance of success for Sainsbury in the future period.
Improving the customer satisfaction level will contribute to maintain good customer
relationship and achieve higher the company's growth.
AC 2.3 Asses the Validity and reliability of research findings
Validity and reliability gains significant importance in the field of market research
described here as under:
Validity: It refers to the accuracy of the market research findings. In context to given
business scenario, survey methodology provided accurate and correct information to
Sainsbury. Fact and valid content has been obtained through constructing necessary questions
that influenced the customer purchase decision in any way (McMillan and Schumacher,
2014.). However, internal validity depends upon the selection of appropriate sample.
Sainsbury choose the sample of 40 customers who make excessive use of company's products
hence, they are fully aware about the product price, quality and respective changes. Thus, it
provides more prominent, fair and truly information about their satisfaction.
Reliability: Consistency of the research measurement implies reliability. It says that
each time our research findings should posses same results as earlier (Taylor, Bogdan and
DeVault, 2015). It can be tested using rating scale, correlation and other statistical
measurement. For measuring the reliability, Sainsbury make use of same questionnaire in
another market segment through choosing a representative sample. Obtaining the similar
research results in different market will indicate research findings are reliable.
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TASK 3
AC 3.1 Assessment of market size trends
Google: It is an US multinational company that provide internet services. Company
serves large number of people as operates at worldwide place. Headquarter of the company is
established in Googleplex, Mountain View, California, US.
Google market share indicate that the company is in leading position. Currently, the
market share of Google is 65.44% which is very high compare to the others. Thus, the
company have very strong and powerful market size and competitive position (Dudovskiy,
2015). However, the market share of other organization is comparatively lower than Google,
given as under:
Lycos – 0.01%
AOL – 0.15%
Ask – 0.24%
Yahoo – 8.28%
Baidu – 8.3%
Bing – 15.82%
Trend: In the year 2013, the market share of Google was 66.9% got increased to
67.3% in the year 2014 whilst in the October, 2015 it got dropped to 63.9%. It was at the
lowest point in this year (Schwartz, 2015). Furthermore, in the month of February, company's
market share was 64.5% get decreased to March by 0.01% to 64.4%. It has taken place due to
increased competition and operations of other search engines.
AC 3.2 Competitive analysis of Google
Currently, Google is facing fierce competition from Bing and Yahoo. The reason
behind that is Bing occupied a large market share after Google to 15.82 and Yahoo occupied
8.28%. In the year 2015, Bing raised its market share by 20% which results in lowering
Google Company’s share (Sterling, 2015). In the year 2014, Bing and Yahoo have 19.4%
and 10% market share of the industry whilst got increased to 20.7% and 12.7% in October,
2015. It indicates that company jumped at a high percentage to grab good market share. Both
the companies affected Google through serving large number of people. Yahoo boosted its
market share through dealing with Firefox. From February, 2015 to March 2015, Bing raised
its share by 12%. The statistical data shows that till October, 2015 4.07% of total users
searched web through using Bing search engine (Sterling, 2015). The data indicate that
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company is improving its share very rapidly and at exponential growth rate. Furthermore, in
US market, Google's market share got fall by 0.26% within a month from 88.35% to 88.09%
while Bing got improved its share by 27% from 6.98% to 7.25%. However, the share of
Yahoo Company got dropped by 0.03% from 3.51% to 3.48%. Thus, it can be said that there
is a great chance of increased level of competition for Google. It will ultimately results in
reducing Google revenues and profitability.
AC 3.3 Opportunities and threats for Google
SWOT analysis of Google helps to predict future opportunities and possibilities of
threats, described here as under:
Opportunities: One of the most important opportunities for Google is using Android
operating system helps to get competitive advantages over the others. Another, non-Ad
business models such as launching Google Books and Google Maps greatly contributes
towards increasing the revenues and profitability as well. Moreover, Google+ and Google
play is a significant opportunity that can exploit company's growth in a great manner
(Dudovskiy, 2015). Furthermore, in the present age, cloud computing also brings huge
opportunities for Google Company. In addition to it, increasing the number of mobile users,
Google fibre cables and acquisition of patent brings number of opportunities for it.
Threats: Fierce level of competition from other search engines such as Microsoft and
Yahoo is a threat for Google. Moreover, EU antitrust laws and costlier products and services
are its threats as unprofitable products will decline company's profit margin and affect it in an
adverse manner (Dudovskiy, 2015). Furthermore, emerging mobile computing also threatens
to Google. In addition to it, Growing the number of internet users brings some difficulties as
lower the space is available to place Google Ads on their devices.
CONCLUSION
The above project report concluded that marketing intelligence helps organization to
collect necessary information about the consumers’ preferences, their choices, and desires
and fulfil them in an appropriate manner. Market research techniques provide assistance to
analyse the collected market information and take better quality of decision. This in turn,
company can achieve high growth and future sustainability.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Babin, B. and Zikmund, W., 2015. Essentials of marketing research. Nelson Education.
Challagalla, G., Murtha, B.R. and Jaworski, B., 2014. Marketing doctrine: A principles-based
approach to guiding marketing decision making in firms. Journal of Marketing. 78(4).
pp.4-20.
Glance, N. And et.al., 2005. Deriving marketing intelligence from online discussion. In
Proceedings of the eleventh ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge
discovery in data mining. ACM.
Gracia, A. and de Magistris, T., 2013. Organic food product purchase behaviour: a pilot study
for urban consumers in the South of Italy. Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research.
5(4). pp. 439-451.
Hair Jr, J.F. And et.al., 2015. Essentials of business research methods. Routledge.
Hair Jr, J.F. and Lukas, B., 2014. Marketing research. McGraw-Hill Education Australia.
Hippler, H.J., Schwarz, N. and Sudman, S. eds., 2012. Social information processing and
survey methodology. Springer Science & Business Media.
Hollensen, S., 2015. Marketing management: A relationship approach. Pearson Education.
Javadi, M.H.M. And et.al., 2012. An analysis of factors affecting on online shopping
behavior of consumers. International Journal of Marketing Studies. 4(5). p.81.
McMillan, J.H. and Schumacher, S., 2014. Research in education: Evidence-based inquiry.
Pearson Higher Ed.
Pan, Y., Leeman, J. and Fond, M., 2013. Development of Census Bureau Survey
Interpretation Guidelines. Survey Methodology. p. 27.
Ritchie, J. And et.al., 2013. Qualitative research practice: A guide for social science students
and researchers. Sage.
Sharda, R., Delen, D. and Turban, E., 2013. Business Intelligence: A Managerial Perspective
on Analytics. Prentice Hall Press.
Taylor, S.J., Bogdan, R. and DeVault, M., 2015. Introduction to qualitative research
methods: A guidebook and resource. John Wiley & Sons.
Zikmund, W. And et.al., 2012. Business research methods. Cengage Learning.
Online
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Consumer Decision Making Process for your Product/service, n.d. [Online]. Available
through: <http://www.ccsfmarketing.com/consumer-decision-making.html >.
[Accessed on 6th February, 2016].
Dudovskiy, J., 2015. [Online]. Available through: <http://research-methodology.net/google-
swot-analysis/>. [Accessed on 6th February, 2016].
Flekel, A., 2013. 5 Steps of Decision Making Process. [Pdf]. Available through:
<http://www.business2community.com/marketing/5-steps-of-decision-making-process-
0480178#eTAIt95frIS1cpuL.97>. [Accessed on 6th February, 2016].
Schwartz, E., 2015. [Online]. Available through: <http://searchengineland.com/googles-
search-market-share-actually-dropping-237045>. [Accessed on 6th February, 2016].
Sterling, G., 2015. [Online]. Available through: <http://searchengineland.com/bing-reaches-
20-percent-search-milestone-in-us-market-218574>. [Accessed on 6th February, 2016].
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