Consumer Behavior and Insight: B2B vs. B2C Decision Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of consumer behavior and insights, focusing on the decision-making process for food products. It outlines the five stages of consumer decision-making: problem recognition, search process, evaluation of alternatives, purchase stage, and evaluation of decision. The report emphasizes the importance of consumer decision-making maps for marketers, highlighting how these maps can improve customer engagement and sales. Furthermore, it compares and contrasts the consumer decision-making processes in B2B and B2C environments, emphasizing the differences in marketing approaches and buyer behavior. The report also explores various market research methods, including primary research techniques like surveys and questionnaires, and secondary research utilizing existing data sources. Finally, it discusses how marketers can influence the consumer decision-making process through various strategies and tools, including the use of digital tools and psychological insights.

Unit 37- Consumer
Behaviour and Insight

INTRODUCTION
Consumers are known as King. They dominate the overall market as their decision of
purchasing products depends on needs and taste and preference. Consumer decision is a process
of analysing information, searching product, etc. and then making final decision. The process is
highly influenced by various factors that are economic, cultural and many more. Moreover, it is
complex process which requires systematic steps to be followed. Consumer needs varies with
change in taste and it affect on their choices regarding product.
This report will describe stages for consumer decision making. Also, it will discuss
importance of consumer decision map for company. Moreover, it will compare and contrast
difference of process in B2B and B2C. In addition to it different approaches for market research
are explained and at last how marketer influence consumer decision making process.
P1 Analysis of stages for consumer decision-making journey for food products
Consumer decision-making is a complex process that involves various stages, from
problem recognition to evaluation of decision of food product. Consumers have different needs
in their daily lives and this let them to make different decisions regarding the choice of their
product. Depending on consumers' opinion, the decision could be complex about product, as it
includes evaluating and comparing, selecting and purchasing among different available food
products. There are basically five steps of decision-making process used by consumers in
analyzing the needs with their consumption.
Problem recognition
A decision is taken by when problem is identified. Food Product Company has to identify
when their target consumer develops their needs. What will be the perfect time to promote
products. For example, if consumer ran out with food product then they need to go to the store
and get more. In general, human needs have no limit.
Search process
Everyone is not expert to know everything around them. In searching phase consumer
needs to search for food products that can fulfil their wants or needs. Here, many people are
engaged with in gathering information about product. Consumers generally searches on search
engines for their products but in most cases, recommendation from actual people is preferred.
Consumer might buy products depending on their experiences.
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Information for food products can be attained through numerous sources like ads, social
media, etc. of a particular product. Through personal sources which includes product
recommendations provided by family and friends. Search process through magazines, radio and
newspapers comes in public sources and experimental sources includes consumers own
experience of using the food product.
Evaluation alternatives
At this stage, consumer analyzes various information about the food product and buy it as
per their needs. Various other factors such as, quality, price, etc. are taken into consideration. For
consumers this process of evaluation can sometimes be difficult, time-consuming, it turns out to
quite hard to find best product that fulfil their wants.
Purchase stage
After the sea.rch process and evaluation stage, consumer makes the selection decision of
food product which is fulfilling all the criteria regarding the needs and demands of consumer. It
is important stage as consumer makes a final decision based on the review of various
alternatives. Consumers may have had experience with the particular food product.
Evaluation of decision.
It is the last stage of this process. Most companies tend to ignore this step but this is one of
the most important stage for food product company that directly affects the future decision-
making process by consumer regarding similar product. It reflects experience of consumer. On
the other hand, good experience can lead to product loyal customers and let them making a
decision to purchase the same food product next time.
P2 Importance of consumer decision-making map for marketers
A representation of Customer experience with the product is the representation is a
customer decision journey mapping. This journey mapping tells a customer’s experience with the
food product from the original usage and hopefully for a long-term relationship. At the first,
customers journey seems to be pretty easy i.e. companies offer products and consumers owe it.
But once getting into details customers journey are quite complex and come in many forms.
Consumers could come Into contact with business in various ways and from many different
initial points, for example marketing referrals, social media searches, customer service enquiries
and above campaign. Consumer’s behavior had been changed significantly in the recent years.
Customers interact with organization through several channels with the help of adaptive mobile
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technologies. These channels are called touch points. Purchasing a product online on in stores are
the various touchpoints.
The benefits of customer journey mapping
Helps to check where customers interact with the business. It focuses on the business on
particular consumer needs at different stages in ordering process. Identifying whether the
customer journey is in a logical order. Gives an outside perspective on marketers sales process.
Showing the gaps between the one actually received Highlighting development priorities and the
customer experience. Allow the marketer to concentrate expenditure and efforts on what matters
most to maximize effectiveness. As relationship with a consumer develops, mapping will also
cover the long term, post purchase journey.
The map shows that how customer has engaged with company and at what touch point. It
also allows to identify their overall decision in entire map. It makes it easy to develop
relationship with customers and identifying their needs. Furthermore, it supports customer to
make their own decision regarding buying of product.
The mapping also helps in identifying experience of customer on various channels. This
allows business to engage with customers in better way and developing a unified approach for
communication. By this it becomes easy to improve sales cycle.
Once marketers have mapped out their consumer decision journey, they could begin to
target customers proactively. Companies uses digital tools in effectively which enables them to
direct consumers in taking right decision. In that psychology plays crucial role as it helps in
mapping customer journey map. Also, it enables in understanding consumer perceptive. This
makes it easy to select target customer and communicate with them.
P3
Every company promote their products and services in the market to attract people. The
ways of marketing also depends on consumer behaviour and target market. The marketing of
product makes it easy to identify how customers have reacted and their perception regarding
product. It is necessary to determine customer behaviour so that change in marketing process is
done. It helps in attracting them and identifying their needs. In B2B and B2C ways of consumer
decision differs. It is because of marketing process or needs of people. Every buyer behavior is
different and challenging for the business environment. Different studies and goals has been
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defined that there is different behavior which identified the business case environment. The
buying business behavior generates processes to make sure that their decisions are as rationale.
In order to context B2C has to determine needs of people in order to maintained the good image
in front of the people.
There are two ways of doing business that is either B2B or B2C. B2C stands for business
to consumer of selling goods and services. On the other side, B2B business stands for business
which are selling product or services to other businesses. Both the businesses have different
elements and functioning level which needs to be done according to the work out goals. the
purchasing process is more complex and determining.
Another basis which differentiae the term B2B and B2C is product specification most of
the business have different purchasing process which they need to adhere exactly. Like in
business to consumer process where the buyers know their needs. Along with the more
identification manner. In the contrast, business to business process exchange services or
business deals to each other. In other words, B2B and B2C need different buying perspective
services which is a key component for both businesses and consumers.
As according to the buyer’s perspective where the final decision making has been taken
by the client. For businesses it is made by discussing it with other people as well. As compare to
businesses consumers makes more impulse decision making process.
Other difference found in between B2B and B2C is services after purchases to both
businesses and consumers. In B2C the consumers are connected with the company in longer
terms but on the same side in business purchases require proper attention and goals. Care about
the customers by the hand of suppliers is very necessary to resolve them. With the beginning of
social media it is easy to be more influencing and powerful to grab the customer attention.
B2B and B2C are also makes difference in the Electronic commerce. Like business to
consumers, products are directly sold through website. Consumers are highly investing their time
on social media platform to get the information before purchasing. O in terms of business to
business clients can use the similar websites based on the business system in order to crak the
business deal with other business. Therefore, business to business transactions needs more
serious attention towards the overall process.
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P4 Approaches for market Research
Research methods help the company in decision making as for developing strategy for new
products. By this different research methods, a company can easily avail through the needs and
demands of their consumer's and cope up with any deficiency in their product and services and
upgrade their product according to the requirements and demands of the customers .
Primary market research involves the collection of data directly from the potential
consumers of the company and from various surveys done through online and offline methods.
In this research different techniques are used which are surveys, field test, interviews and
observation etc. In this method feedback is collected from the customers from every aspect
which can be emotionally, socially, rationally, culturally and economically etc. With the help of
feedbacks by customer's company can evaluate the demands of the new and existing product in
the market and any improvement in the product if required to make the product effective and
salient to make an effective impression in the market. The techniques are as follows -
 Market Research Survey – Survey is the basic techniques used by the companies for the
market research. Survey can be a small feedback or an extensive web survey used by the
companies. Apple use the web surveys technique to avail the feedback by their
customer's. Apple collect their data with the help of Frame, in which pop-up is created
when any visitor visits the website of the company, so they can easily collect the
feedback from their customers and avails through the needs and improvement in the
existing and new products and implement the change if required. Apple conducts many
online and offline surveys which can help the firm to generate ideas in advancement in
technology.
 Online Questionnaire - It is the most popular form of survey, as it can reach to the
maximum number of people. Apple also uses the online questionnaire for the survey so
that they can collect feedback from the wide number of people which can be a base of
emerging ideas and provides direction to the future update. The company prepares the
questionnaire which fits all their products like Phones, TV, Ipad, Smart watch, MacBook
etc. The Questions can easily change and modified according to the needs and
requirements of the survey. This helps the company to gather the feedback from the
consumer's and avails the satisfaction level of the consumer for their products.
Secondary Market Research Method –
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Secondary research includes the existing data for their research. It helps in evaluating data
and information in more depth. Moreover, it involves the research materials which are taken
from journals, articles, etc. they are available in database, libraries, etc. and already filled surveys
data.
 Data gettable on the internet – It is the popular source of collecting the data through
internet. Apple uses this method to collect the data they collect the data which is available
on the internet and thus they avail and modified their product according to that data. The
company collect the data from trusted and authentic website so that the data collected is
appropriate and can be used as information. It is the cheapest method to avail through the
needs and demands of the consumer's and get the reviews by the consumers for their
products. This helps Apple to easily update their product according to it, if it is necessary
and the Apple does by implement change and upgrade their product time to time so that
they their customers are fully satisfied with their products.
 Commercial information sources – Commercial information source is very common
source to collect the data which includes the journals, newspapers, radio, magazines and
TV. This information source contains the accurate information on politics, economic
developments, etc. Apple also uses these sources to collect data and information about
their product as they can evaluate the popularity of their product in the market, and they
can easily update their product according to the market trend and create an image.
P5
Goal of every marketer is to identify what their customer actually wants, satisfaction of
their customer from services provided by the company. There are five stages of decision-making
which are followed by the marketer to identify the needs and wants of the customer these stages
are problem recognition, Searching process, Comparison, Selection and lastly evaluation of the
result. These are explained below:
Problem Recognition:
Every decision-making steps starts by the marketers to solve the problems occurs in the business
operations. Consumer has various wants and needs which they want to fulfil in B2C marketers
can try to solve the problems of customers.
Search process:
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In this searching process marketers research about the wants, needs and requirement of
the customer. In B2C marketers search the interest of the customer to provide better
Evaluating alternatives:
Under this step marketers should decide price, quality and different factors which are
related to the wants and needs of the customer for the consumers. In B2C marketers takes
decision on the basis of taste and preferences of the consumer. Marketers evaluate the wants and
needs of the customer to provide better quality products and services which satisfy them.
Selection Stages:
After evaluating all the alternatives the next step of decision-making making process is
selection stage where marketers decide what their customer actually want to purchase and from
where. Marketer gives advertisement on TV channels to influence the customers towards their
food products and services.
Evaluation of Decision:
In the last step marketers check the result when customer purchases the products if is
satisfied their needs or wants or not because the marketers want lifetime customer for their
company for increasing the productivity of the company.
1. Social environment-The most important advantage in food industries especially fast foods is t
hey are very cheap and easily available. But as the competition in food sector is increasing day b
y day, the companies are regularly working on the new food products and also working on the qu
alities to sustain in the market and can give the competition to the other food industries and as th
e societies are upgrading daily, the food market are keeping their eyes to understand their needs.
2. Business objectives-In today's era, number of innovations are taking place to complete the ne
eds of the customers and as the population is increasing day by day, the food requirements are als
o increasing so the companies are regularly launching their new products in the market. Compani
es kept on launching their new products and selling them at a vert low cost with the great quality.
3. Financial Conditions-Currently, the companies strategies is to produce the cheaper and easily
available products and this increases the sale of the companies. This method can be useful for the
companies who are running low on budget so this ideas can be proved as budget friendly.
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4. Availability-As the population is increasing day by day, the demand and supply is also increa
sing. So the companies are keep on increasing their suppliers so that if any suppliers fails in prov
iding the products then other can provide the products.
5. Competition-The competition is regularly increasing in the in the food industries and compani
es are regularly working on the quality so that they can be in the competition with the other com
panies, and they are changing their trends to increase the sell and productivity
CONCLUSION
From the above study it can be concluded that consumer behaviour is important for an
organization. The different stages of consumer decision-making for product or services as before
making which describe how consumer makes purchase by evaluating the consumer behaviour a
company can easily full fill the needs and demands of consumers with the help of different
research methods. Feedbacks by the consumer helps the company to upgrade their products and
services and implement changes according to the trends which helps organization to maintain
stability of their brand in the market and effectively achieve the organization objectives.
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