University Marketing Report: Consumer Behavior for Amazon Australia

This report provides a comprehensive market research and client support for Amazon Australia, focusing on consumer behavior in the Australian market. It identifies key target customer groups, including early adopters and new parents, and analyzes their shopping habits. The report incorporates various learning theories, such as behavioral and cognitive approaches, to understand how customers learn about Amazon's services. It also utilizes the black box model to explain the decision-making process and examines the influence of reference groups, social media, and word-of-mouth publicity. The report concludes with recommendations to improve services and capitalize on market opportunities, aiming to enhance Amazon Australia's productivity and profitability within the competitive Australian online retail landscape. The report also highlights the importance of understanding the needs of the customers and the benefits of a better distribution and logistics system.

Running head: MARKETING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
Marketing Consumer Behavior
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1MARKETING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
Executive summary
The purpose of this report is to provide a market research and client support for the manager of
Amazon Australia so that the management of the organization can improve their services and
company policies to maximize the productivity and profitability to ensure the success of the
business organization in the relatively unknown market of Australia. The report highlights the
major target customer groups based on whom the management will be improving their policies
and strategies. Apart from that various learning theories are incorporated using which the
customers can get to know the services of Amazon Australia. The report also provides a brief
recommendation regarding how to improve the services to make the most of the situation by
monopolizing the market.

2MARKETING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Amazon and their rival organizations in Australian market............................................................4
Learning theories for the customers of Amazon Australia..............................................................5
Black box model..........................................................................................................................6
Reference groups.............................................................................................................................7
Adoption and diffusion of innovation..............................................................................................9
Social media...............................................................................................................................10
Word of mouth publicity...........................................................................................................11
Recommendation...........................................................................................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................13
References......................................................................................................................................14

3MARKETING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
Introduction
Amazon.com, Inc is an electronic commerce organization that is headquartered in
Washington, United States of America. The organization was primarily established by Jeff Bezos
in the year of 1994 and currently the organization is the biggest online retailer in the global
market in a measure of revenue and the capitalization of market. Amazon operates in the market
of United States of America, France, Canada, China, Brazil, Australia and in many more
countries. The organization initially started selling books and later they initiated selling
electronics, various software, furniture, toys, electrical goods and many more. In this regard it is
worth mentioning that the management of Amazon has launched different websites for different
countries where they operate.
The target customers of Amazon Australia are the individuals who are adults and the
early adopters are undoubtedly the favorite customers of the management of Amazon Australia.
The generation of revenue of the organization immensely depends on the early adopters as these
individuals are always enthusiastic to try new products of the market and this group of customers
is seen to be lesser price sensitive than the rest of the customers. Apart from that these
individuals are loyal towards the organization and they endorse the products of Amazon through
word of mouth advertising method willingly (O'Connor 2017). The management of Amazon
Australia thus rewards the early adopters by providing them early access to the latest products
and these customers also get special benefits. The management of Amazon has aggressively
captured the market of baby diapers by lowering the prices and then they bought the organization
Quidsi, one of their rival organizations. After that, the new parents of their operational market
have become major target customers for the management of Amazon Australia. As these new

4MARKETING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
parents, who are young adults tends to develop a shopping habit for their infant (Abedin 2016).
The management of Amazon Australia has seen this trend and targets this customer base with
Amazon family that provides almost 20% discount to the Prime members for the subscriptions to
diapers and other products for babies (O'Connor 2017). The purpose of this report is to draw a
gather the knowledge regarding the consumer behavior of the target customers of Amazon
Australia.
Amazon and their rival organizations in Australian market
Currently Amazon is one of the biggest online retailers in the global market and when
they established their business in Australia a few months ago, the management of Amazon
Australia has observed that in the Australian market the growth of online sales has increased
almost 10 to 12 % and to capitalize the situation the management of Amazon expanded their
business to Australia. The major rival companies of Amazon Australia are the organizations like
Harvey Norman, Myer, JB HiFi and many more. The management of Amazon Australia is
targeting to establish their business ion the market of Australia by providing exciting offers to
the target customers and by selling the products and giving opportunities to the target customers
after getting to know their requirements (Abedin 2016). Thus, it can be said that getting to know
the requirements of the customers are important for the success of a retailer organization. It is
seen that the management of Amazon Australia is reputed for their aggressive way of capturing
the market and in this scenario; the management of the rival organizations are thinking that by
lowering the prices immensely the management of Amazon Australia might capture the total
online retail market of Australia making it difficult for them to sustain (Cavusgil et al. 2014).
The management of Amazon Australia uses better distribution and logistics system and that
helps the organization to satisfy the requirements of the customers more easily and that can help

5MARKETING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
them to gain the competitive advantage on their rival organizations. Apart from that, another
feature allows the management of Amazon to gain competitive advantage and that is leveraging
Information technology and the usage of e-commerce makes it sure that the productivity and
profitability of the organization remain higher than the rival organizations in the market of
operation.
Learning theories for the customers of Amazon Australia
There are mostly two types of target customers of Amazon Australia and those are new
parents and early adopters. The early adopters are the ones who show enthusiasm to buy the
latest products launched by the organization and these customers do not care for the monetary
aspects. Thus these are the major customers of Amazon Australia, who will determine the
profitability of the organization in the Australian market. The other group of target customers of
Amazon Australia is the new parents; as the management of the organization has captured the
most of the baby diapers and the products for the infants, the new parents automatically became
the target customer groups. In this section of this report it will be discussed that which or which
combination of learning theories will help these customers to learn the services provided by the
management of Amazon Australia.
There are mostly two types of learning theories that the consumers can utilize and those
are behavioral approach and cognitive approach to learning. In the behavioral approach, the
process of learning occurs as a response to the events taking place in an individual’s external
environment. On the contrary, in the cognitive approach, the learning becomes a result of the
individual’s deliberate and conscious information processing and the storage activity (Hsu 2018).

6MARKETING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
The management of Amazon Australia provides their target customers with unique
rewards and attractive facilities to keep them loyal towards the organization and these are
positive aspects of the management of the organization as when a target customer experience that
he or she can easily choose the products from the shopping portal and get exciting offers and
good service from the organization, naturally they will tend to buy products from the
organization and make some researches in order to avail the exciting offers provided by the
organization (Walker 2017).
On the other hand, looking at the advertisements of the organization, the target customers
of the organization can accumulate necessary information regarding the services of the
organization that will make it easier for them to take the right decisions to choose the
organization from whom they will buy products (Hsu 2018). It can be said that the combination
of these two theories can be fruitful for the target customers of Amazon Australia to choose the
right organization from whom they want to purchase goods.
In this context, it is worth mentioning that the consumers cannot take their decisions
alone and they will be needing to get some information from different types of sources like
reference groups, advertisements of the organization or any other secondary or primary source of
information (Li, Nagurney and Yu 2017). The decision making process of the target customers of
the organization is among the stimulus for the purchase, the requirements of the consumers and
the corresponding responses. The stimuli can either be inter-personal or intra-personal from the
customers. This issue can be explained in more details using the black box model.

7MARKETING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
Black box model
The box involves the characteristics of the customers and the decision making process of
the customers. The external and internal factors might be represented in the model as the
environmental stimuli and the buyer characteristics. These factors will both manipulate the
process of decision making. From the identification of the issue till the post assessment of the
decisions at every step is vital for the customer that can unswervingly to the marketing strategies.
The learning which is positive can reduce the time for making decisions where the customer can
eliminate the choices and the customers will take lesser time to do market research. It can be said
that all these aspects are related to the motivation, learning, psychological factors and the
personality of the consumer (Walker 2017).
It is a matter of fact that, from the above mentioned theories the information regarding
Amazon Australia the target customers will get will either positively or negatively impact on the
relationship between the organization and the target customers (Li, Nagurney and Yu 2017). On
the other hand, the observational learning materials for the consumers, like advertisements of the
organizations can influence the target customers to buy the products from that specific
organization.
Reference groups
The term reference group refers to a group of individuals; to which another group or an
individual can be compared. Further it can be said that the reference groups can be used to
determine and evaluate the nature of other group’s or individual’s sociological attributes and
characteristics. The reference groups give benchmarks and the required contrast to evaluate and
compare groups and the personal characteristics.

8MARKETING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
When a particular reference group is seen used as a source of information, people get all
the necessary information from the group members. In this way, either the information is shared
verbally or in form of writing from the direct instruction, observation or demonstration by the
group members (Cavusgil et al. 2014). In this way, the members become the authoritative source
for all types of information. There are always some members who are dependent on the others
regarding gathering the information. When the source of information is seen as reliable and the
provided information is relevant to the issue, it becomes more influential. For an example, if a 20
years old computer engineer is asked for opinion regarding purchasing a laptop, he or she will
become the most influential source of information.
In this regard, it is worth mentioning that the information might be dispersed within the
reference group by social media websites, blogs and via social meetings. For an example, it can
be said that an individual might ask for necessary information from the co-members of a
reference group. The information can also be distributed among the members of the reference
group informally or unintentionally.
Generally the reference groups are of two types, primary and secondary. In a primary
reference groups the group members happen to have close bonding, frequent face to face
interactions. The members of a primary reference groups tend to have a significant influence on
the other individuals and that includes the influence in the marketplace (Li, Nagurney and Yu
2017). For an example, it can be said that if there is a small group of friends where the
individuals are interested in automobile, and a group member is planning to buy a gadget for his
or her car from Amazon, the other members of the group will definitely help that person to buy
the product by providing him the necessary information regarding the product.

9MARKETING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
On the other hand, a secondary reference group is referred to the group in which the
communication among the group members is lesser and example of such groups is large social
clubs, professional organizations, or alumni associations. In this scenario, the influence of a
group member to the other members of the group is lesser. It is seen that the secondary groups
are generally formed from smaller primary groups (Cavusgil et al. 2014). For an example, it can
be said that a person might choose to wear blue shirt and black pant just like the other individuals
of his workplace does the same.
Adoption and diffusion of innovation
Diffusion theory of innovation demonstrates why, how and at what rate the new notions
and technologies get spread. Everett Rogers widely popularized the theory of diffusion of
innovation where he stated that diffusion is the way by which a unique innovation gets shared
over time between the members of a social system. There are four major elements of theory of
diffusion and those are; time, social system, the innovation itself and the communicational
channel (Tigabu, Berkhout and van Beukering 2015). For the sustenance of the innovation, it
should be widely adopted. In the rate of adoption, there should be a point where a unique
innovation reaches the critical mass. To categorize the adopters, they can be divided into groups
like early adopters, innovators, early majority, late majority and laggards. The diffusion can be
seen in various ways and it is subject to the categories of innovation decision process and the
adopters. The decisive factor of categorization of the adopters is innovativeness that can be
explained as the degree to which a person adopts a new notion or idea.
Communication channels are one of the most fundamental aspects of diffusion theory of
innovation and diffusion takes place among the individuals or organizations. The channels of

10MARKETING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
communication allow the transfer of information from one unit to another unit (Li, Nagurney and
Yu 2017). The patterns of communication or the capabilities should be established among the
concerned parties as a minimum for diffusion to take place.
There are two major communicational channel of Amazon Australia and those are social
media and the other one is word of mouth of the early adopters.
Social media
The social media in today’s world has become one of the major influential medium or
channel of communication. In spite of noticeable accessibility and simplicity of the majority of
the social media channels, if it is used wisely, it can effectively give opportunity to get connected
with numerous new and existing stakeholders ( in this case, the customers) (Agnihotri et al.
2016). Apart from the opportunities, social media can invoke various challenges like other
channels of communication if it is not used with proper caution. Since the last decade, there has
been a significant increase in the usage of social media websites like Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube and many more in order to share information and also to create content. In today’s ever
changing world, various business organizations are trying to use social media as a platform to let
know their target customers about their existence and the services they offer (Tigabu, Berkhout
and van Beukering 2015).
Advantages of social media platform
Social media as a channel of communication has been advantageous in most of the cases.
Social media effectively enhances the impact of the important information. Social media as a
channel of communication leverage networks of individuals to make the sharing of information
easier. The social media makes different messages to reach up to the diverse target audiences.

11MARKETING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
The social media communicational channel can help the organization to directly provide
messages to the target customers (Hudson et al. 2015). Apart from these, the social media is a
major tool that can be used in building credibility and awareness. The business organization like
Amazon Australia can be use social media in audience segmentation. The management of the
organization can share messages which are specific to te requirements, concerns and desires of a
particular target customer group while keeping in mind what factors can attract them to buy
products.
Word of mouth publicity
Written or oral recommendation by the customers who are satisfied from the services
provided by Amazon Australia can be a good word of mouth promotion for the specified
business organization. Word of mouth promotion can be considered as one of the most
influential form of marketing as when the target customers observe that there are numerous
people who have bought the products and are satisfied, that would automatically influence the
target customers to buy the products (Baker, Donthu and Kumar 2016). There is some presence
of incorrect information sharing too. As some business organizations can hire people for word of
mouth marketing and they write positive comments on the shopping portals regarding the
products which they have never used. The customers would not be able to differentiate between
the fake and the honest inputs.
At times, word of mouth can be effective as a channel of communication in the marketing
campaign of any business organization, as it can provide an impactful solution to infiltrate the
consumer guards in order to make them talk regarding a specified product. The word of mouth
channel of communication is in general personal and that depicts that they are certainly not
subject to the persuasion from the business organization regarding individual gains or becoming