The consumer behaviour

Résumé du document

Nowadays, more and more students decide to study abroad in order to enhance their language abilities and discover new cultures and lifestyles. As a French student who lived and studied in Paisley for a year, the author is aware that going abroad to study is an important and difficult decision to make and that one should think about it very carefully before making a choice. In Marketing, this kind of decision takes part in what is called the consumer behavior which can be defined as "the decision process and physical activity individuals engage in when evaluating, acquiring, using or disposing of goods or services" (Lawson et al., 1996). Thanks to this process, it is possible to draw on models from economics, psychology, sociology or even anthropology. It is important to know that consumer behavior can be influenced by different variables such as external environmental (cultural and sub-cultural influences, social class influences, family and personal influences, etc) as well as individual determinants that establish how consumers proceed through the decision making process (information processing, personality, attitudes, motivation, etc).

Extraits

[...] Culture is such a large term that marketers focus on sub-cultures, which is to say a culture within another culture. This is easier as the target is smaller and more precise; it makes it possible for marketers to identify more homogeneous subgroups within the heterogeneous national culture. For example marketers analyse regional areas because the differences between them are significant. Therefore marketers analyse a culture by splitting it into several parts to have a better cross section to sell a product, and these different parts are called sub-cultures. They are often categorized on the basis of demographics. [...]

[...] German people seem to be rigorous and well organised. Then, the British and the Irish were interviewed. As they both live in the United Kingdom, it was decided to regroup them in the United Kingdom group although it is obvious that there are differences between them. First of all, their answers stress that they are impulsive and enthusiastic. In fact, they are very expressive, and like Germans, they have a strong achievement desire. Hence they give a lot of importance to work. [...]

[...] They share some values, so it can be said that they belong to a sub-group or sub- culture. It can therefore definitely be said that culture plays a critical role to influence people in their individual-decision making process. Nevertheless one should know that culture is not the only component of consumer behaviour that influences the individual decision-making process; personality in general can have a great impact on this process and choices and decisions do not always go along with one's culture. References Books Assaël, H., (1987). Consumer Behaviour and Marketing Action. 4th edition, New York University Press. [...]

[...] The consumer behaviour Introduction Nowadays, more and more students decide to go and study abroad in order to enhance their language abilities and to discover new cultures and lifestyles. As a French student who lived and studied in Paisley for a year, the author is aware that going abroad to study is an important and difficult decision to make and that one should think about it very carefully before making a choice. In Marketing, this kind of decision takes part in what is called the consumer behaviour which can be defined as decision process and physical activity individuals engage in when evaluating, acquiring, using or disposing of goods or services” (Lawson et al., 1996). [...]

[...] For this questionnaire, two German students, two students from the United Kingdom (British and Irish) and two French students were interviewed. However the results are not very accurate as the sample is quite small. An example of an answer can be found on appendix 4. First, the two German women were interviewed and it was noticed that they are quite different. Indeed, they are not the same age and they do not have the same level of formal education, so they belong to two different sub- cultures. [...]