A Report on Ethical Issues in Consumer Behavior and Solutions

This report delves into the ethical issues prevalent in consumer behavior, focusing on key areas such as consumer privacy, incorrect pricing, product labeling and packaging, product safety, and product quality. It highlights the increasing concerns around consumer data protection, misleading practices, and the delivery of substandard goods. The report recommends integrating ethical decision-making into strategic management by adhering to principles of intuition, moral idealism, and utilitarianism. It emphasizes the importance of establishing robust security policies for products to ensure consumer safety and trust. The conclusion underscores the need for companies to prioritize ethical conduct to foster positive consumer relationships and maintain market integrity, offering students valuable insights; Desklib provides access to similar reports and solved assignments.

Consumer behaviour

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Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................................... 2
Ethical issues of consumer behaviour..................................................................................................... 2
Consumer privacy....................................................................................................................................... 2
Wrong price tag............................................................................................................................................ 2
Incorrect change.......................................................................................................................................... 3
Pricing and product issues....................................................................................................................... 3
Labelling and packaging........................................................................................................................... 3
Product safety............................................................................................................................................... 3
Quality of product........................................................................................................................................ 3
Recommendation............................................................................................................................................. 4
Integrating ethical decision making into strategic management.............................................4
Know the principles.................................................................................................................................... 4
Make security policy for products........................................................................................................ 5
References........................................................................................................................................................... 6

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Introduction
Term consumer behaviour is the study of how particular consumer, team, and
companies select, use, and buy the good services to satisfy their requirements. It is also
called the action of the consumer in the marketplace and the underlying motives for
those actions (Brunk, 2010). The purpose of this report is to analysis the ethical issues
faced by consumer behaviour techniques and identify the methods by which people can
avoid such issues. Ethics is a branch of philosophy which includes defending,
systematizing, and recommending the concept of right and wrong conduct. There are
many ethical problems occur in consumer behaviour for example wrong price,
advertising and many more which will be discussed in this report.
Ethical issues of consumer behaviour
The ethical behaviour is defined as behaviour which is ethically and morally
correct according to the market. A company must understand the ethical issues faced by
consumers by which they can avoid the product issue and improve their productivity
(Cantallops, & Salvi, 2014). There are many kinds of ethical issues occur in the area of
consumer behaviours which are described below:
Consumer privacy
It is one of the most common ethical issues faced by the consumer which is
increasing rapidly. In the last few years, many consumers lost their privacy by
purchasing products from third-party applications and many companies use
unauthentic networks by which hackers block their personal accounts. When any
person buys a product from any website then it uses online payment method if they lost
their account privacy then they can lose their bank details. A recent study investigated
that around 50% consumers in worldwide use fraud websites and application because
they provide products I very low price due to which they lost their privacy by providing
complete information (Carrington, Neville, & Whitwell, 2014).
Wrong price tag
This problem occurs when the members of the online website put the tag on any
product or item and recently more than 30% of cases of wrong product tag was
identified. Consumers make mistake and when they do and people have a choice either

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purchase the item from dishonestly or refuse. In the year 2014, a case was observed by
a consumer that involving airline ticket which was priced incorrectly. While many
consumers do not know about such kind of problem due to which they were facing the
financial issue or wrong price tag.
Incorrect change
The problem with getting the wrong amount of money back is also an ethical
issue which occurs due to uncertainty between the consumer and employee. Many
companies observed that their account manager provided the wrong amount to their
consumers by which consumer communicate with them but they do not give any
response (Chan, Wong, & Leung, 2008).
Pricing and product issues
Generally, the store manager engages in price fixing and sell items for inflates
prices by refusing with the business industry. This is also an ethical issue because the
company provided an offer on a product but the store manager change their price and
transfer to the consumers. The price fixing is illegal that can reduce the value of market
and consumers also faced this type of issue when he/she buy any product from the
market.
Labelling and packaging
Consumers have the right to know what the items are that they buy with their
packaging and labelling but most online companies do not provide such facilities. The
main important ethical issue inducing in the area of packaging is misleading packaging
and it is very significant for customers to know what they are purchasing for the
transaction to be legitimate (Morin, 2011).
Product safety
Product safety is also an ethical issue because many companies do not provide
any security of consumer products due to which customers can receive damage
products. A recent study indicates that around 60% of consumers received damaged
product due to lack of safety because companies do not provide any security policy to
their consumers (Verbeke, Vanhonacker, Sioen, Van Camp, & De Henauw, 2007).

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Quality of product
In this modern era, many consumers use online shopping process to buy and sell
any kind of products. There are many private companies that provided clothing and
electronic items to their consumers but when any person buy the product according to
their rating then he/she got a very low-quality product which is also a big concern in
the field of the ethical issue (Ramsey, Marshall, Johnston, & Deeter-Schmelz, 2007). Due
to the lack of quality issues many consumers have given negative feedback on social
media but still, companies are not providing the best quality products.
Recommendation
It is recommended that to avoid the ethical issues faced by consumers can be
resolved by identifying the key factors that associated with ethical concerns. In last five
years, consumers were suffered from the issue of price, product quality and return the
money and to avoid this issues companies can develop the ethical policies and improve
their product quality (Shen, Wang, Lo, & Shum, 2012). There are various kinds of
approaches can be used to resolve such kinds of issues which are described below:
Integrating ethical decision making into strategic management
To handle and address the ethical issues faced by consumers in the field of
consumer behaviour consumers can apply the integrating ethical decision process. In
which people can solve their problem and companies should take a serious action if
they found any ethical problem in their store (Vitell, 2009).
Know the principles
In the field of consumer behaviours there are main three principles developed which
can be used to address the ethical issues which are the following:
 The principle of intuition works that works on the assumption that the store
manager is competent enough to understand the situation and take action
accordingly (Solomon, Dahl, White, Zaichkowsky, & Polegato, 2014)
 The principle of moral idealism that there is a clear distinction between bad and
good by which the issue of product price and quality can be resolved
 Utilitarianism anxieties itself with the consequences or the implications and
there is no clear difference between what is good and what is bad. What may be

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satisfactory in a convinced state can be intolerable at certain another place. It
underscores that if the total consequence of the decision is a rise in the
contentment of the group, the choice is the right one.
Make security policy for products
The security of a product is one of the most important key factors that can be
resolved by developing the strategies and policies. In the last five years the security of
production has decreased by 50% because companies are not providing the product
with 100% security. If companies design and implement security policy and provide the
surety to their consumers than the ethical issue of product safety can be resolved
(Solomon, White, Dahl, Zaichkowsky, & Polegato, 2017).
Conclusion
This report is completely based on the ethical issues faced by consumer
behaviour and with the help of this research readers can enhance their knowledge in
the area of marketing. It is estimated that the rate of ethical issues has increased by
50% between 2013 and 2017 because many companies are providing very low-quality
products. There are main three ethical issues observed by consumers, for example,
price fixing, product quality and product safety issue and many consumers received
very bad quality products. This report analysed the key factors that increase the ethical
issues and prevention methods to resolve such kinds of problems. People should ensure
that they buy products from highly rated companies and if they received any wrong
product then communicate with store managers and take serious action.

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References
Brunk, K. H. (2010). Exploring the origins of ethical company/brand perceptions—A
consumer perspective of corporate ethics. Journal of Business Research, 63(3),
255-262.
Cantallops, A. S., & Salvi, F. (2014). New consumer behaviour: A review of research on
eWOM and hotels. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 36, 41-51.
Carrington, M. J., Neville, B. A., & Whitwell, G. J. (2014). Lost in translation: Exploring the
ethical consumer intention-behaviour gap. Journal of Business Research, 67(1),
2759-2767.
Chan, R. Y., Wong, Y. H., & Leung, T. K. (2008). Applying ethical concepts to the study of
“green” consumer behaviour: An analysis of Chinese consumers’ intentions to
bring their own shopping bags. Journal of Business Ethics, 79(4), 469.
Morin, C. (2011). Neuromarketing: the new science of consumer
behaviour. Society, 48(2), 131-135.
Ramsey, R. P., Marshall, G. W., Johnston, M. W., & Deeter-Schmelz, D. R. (2007). Ethical
ideologies and older consumer perceptions of unethical sales tactics. Journal of
Business Ethics, 70(2), 191-207.
Shen, B., Wang, Y., Lo, C. K., & Shum, M. (2012). The impact of ethical fashion on
consumer purchase behaviour. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management:
An International Journal, 16(2), 234-245.
Solomon, M. R., Dahl, D. W., White, K., Zaichkowsky, J. L., & Polegato, R. (2014). Consumer
Behaviour: Buying, having and being (Vol. 10). London: Pearson.
Solomon, M. R., White, K., Dahl, D. W., Zaichkowsky, J. L., & Polegato, R. (2017). Consumer
Behaviour: Buying, having and being. Boston, MA, USA:: Pearson.
Verbeke, W., Vanhonacker, F., Sioen, I., Van Camp, J., & De Henauw, S. (2007). Perceived
importance of sustainability and ethics related to fish: A consumer behaviour
perspective. AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment, 36(7), 580-585.

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Vitell, S. J. (2009). The role of religiosity in business and consumer ethics: A review of
the literature. Journal of Business Ethics, 90(2), 155-167.