Attitudes and behavior

ABSTRACT

The paper focuses on attitudes and behavior on the concept of the youth’s buying

behavior towards branded sports shoes, different consumers have got different decision

making process. The buyer’s ultimate goal is to buy the product of qualitative,

quantitative with low/best affordable price. In order to identify different kinds of

consumer’s behavior towards buying of different branded shoes and Nike sports shoe. I

have carried out buying behavior of youth and different kind of consumer behavior

models, literature and theory of consumer behavior; finally, I analyzed and concluded

with research based on questionnaire of Nike shoes and case studies of Nike sports shoes

at Halmstad University.

1. INTRODUCTION & BACKGROUND

Introduction:

Why studying youth buying behaviour?

Youth is perhaps the most difficult demographic group to communicate with. Not only

they have a short attention span, they are also elusive in media consumption, fickle in

brand preference, and simply challenging to engage and entertain. Marketers spend

millions in marketing research every year trying to predict, or anticipate, changing youth

behaviours. With the continually proliferating choices of sports shoe, not only does this

group embrace technology at an early age, it quickly becomes the early adopters of all

new trends and convergent platforms. One can argue that whatever youth does today

foreshadows what older demographic groups will adopt in the near future. All this makes

it extremely difficult to understand and target their behaviours.

Background

Consumer has been elated with the kind of reception; they are getting from various

companies these days. The reason behind a drastic change in consumer behavior is

because the consumer is no more treated as a hire purchaser but, he is treated as the

decider of the company’s fortune. Companies or marketers cannot hire any fortuneteller

to guess the consumer’s attitude. Guessing or measuring the consumers attitude is not a

cake walk but this is because predicting consumers attitude is as tough as predicting

consumer’s mind (Bheri, 2004).

Consumers are continuously choosing among the various products though they are not

aware of the products and usage, even though they are intentionally purchasing the

various new brands without any knowledge about the new products, furthermore if new

company enters into the market, for every consumer it is very difficult to understand the

features of the news products and this makes confusion among the consumers to obtain

the information. For example: If one local company enters into the market then to gain

the knowledge about the features of the new product, it will take long time for the

consumers to understand (Nelson, 1970).

The term ‘consumer’ can be described as a person who acquires goods and services for

self satisfaction and his often used to describe two different kinds of consuming entities:

the personal consumers and organizational consumers. The personal consumers buy

goods and services for his/her own use. In this context, the goods are bought for final use

by individual, who are organizational consumers, they encompasses for profit and not for

profit business, government agencies, institutions, all of them must buy products,

equipment and services in order to run their organization (Hawkins, Best and Coney

1998).

The consumer will respond according to the product quality and reliability, the

fundamental understanding of products is necessary to understand the product features,

products reliability and product benefits (Baker, 2004). The consumer is the end user for

the product; consumers buy the products in market; in order to perform successful sales

operations in the market an effective distribution channel and networks are required for

the organizations. Distribution channels and networks play an important role in the

consumer goods industry. Consumer is the ultimate user of every product, without any

consumer there is no market as such (Baker, 2004).

Every region wise the different consumers are using different kind of products. Every

consumer has their own tastes and preferences. So, every consumer’s opinions and

preferences are different from one another. The local marketers have good idea about,

what the local consumers are using (region wise). For example: The south Indian food

habits and tastes and preferences are different, when compared to north Indian food

habits (Thomas, 2004).

Based on above paragraph, direct marketing activities have big impact on every

consumer, because through direct marketing every company knows about the behavior of

every consumer in the market. Manufacturing companies, retailer and suppliers do not

have an idea about the consumer behavior in the local market. So, author suggested that

direct marketing activities should be left to the local market leaders, because the local

market leaders have best idea of local market and local consumer behavior. This theory

helps for the organization and sub-organizations to know the consumer behavior in

different market environments, taste and preferences of the consumer behavior (Thomas,

2004).

McDonald’s would not have made a big impact in the Indian market had it persisted with

its U.S. product line that included beef products, moreover, McDonald’s repositioned the

brand as family-oriented and children-friendly, catering the traditional Indian middle-

class segment that finds pride in its family culture and is especially conscious of

childcare. So in this point of view Mc Donald’s have approached differently, because

they identified that, which they followed earlier that will not get good impact on their

business so, they immediately changed the business line to achieve the targets, thus, this

is one kind of business strategy to achieve the set goals in huge populated countries

(Dash, 2005).

For perspective of globalization we can not change the system of tastes and preferences

of Consumers. Another instance demonstrating the ignorance of local tastes in the wake

of globalization features the multinational mobile phone makers, Nokia had tasted

success with its soap-bar designed phones and ceased producing the flip phones that

consumers found irritating to use (Zaccai, 2005).

The Chinese business people are giving importance to Chinese traditional, patriotic

values; the business people are running their businesses by showing their traditional,

patriotic advertisement and promotional campaigns to get the business from the Chinese

people. The Chinese consumer’s perspective, by assessing their preferences amongst a

host of advertisements and promotional campaigns, later on the business people are

started the global Advertisement campaigns with status and social appeal, they sought

immense pride in clinging to the traditional, cultural and patriotic values through the local

campaigns, with this theory helps by knowing the Chinese consumer behavior and also

they are giving same importance to traditional and patriotic values in the name of

advertisements. Finally, they want the advertisements with traditional and patriotic values

of Chinese culture (Zhou and Belk, 2004).

The consumers mind is different from one another in this as author said in the definition

that according to the human psychology, demographical differences, age & sex and to

understand people needs. (Kotler, 2004), to assess the influences of every consumer

approach is different, in theory explained that consumer is treated as decider of the

company, what ever the product comes to the market, the consumer is the ultimate

purchaser for every product, some times the consumers are choosing, selecting and going

for family decision making to choose differently, in one point of time the consumers

differentiated and explained that they are going for personal and some of the them are

using products for profit. Demographical differences make new food habits for every

consumer. The choice of variation for every consumer (Kotler, 2004).

The example of above paragraph, two countries, therefore Chinese consumers are giving

respect to traditional and patriotic values, where as Indian consumers are more religious

when they are using the products. These are influences that make the consumer to

purchase different products; mostly those influences are more related to the

physiological, demographical, social, cultural, economic, family and business influences.

According to Kotler (1994), consumer behavior is the study of how people buy, what

they buy, when they buy and why they buy. It is a subcategory of marketing that blends

elements from psychology, sociology, socio psychology, anthropology and economics. It

attempts to understand the buyer decision making process, both individually and in

groups. It studies characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics,

psychographics, and behavioral variables in an attempt to understand people needs. It

also tries to assess influences on the consumer from group such as family friends,

reference groups, and society in general (Kotler, 1994) for example while consumers

purchase the shoe, then they go for family decision, comfort, satisfaction, price and

quality. Every family member doesn’t have the same opinion to buy the same product;

different family members have different choice to buy the product. So, in one family

consumer behavior is different (Kotler, 1994).

2. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to a better knowledge of consumer buying

behavior towards purchasing the sports shoes. The aim of the thesis is to find out the

factors influencing the youth in purchasing sports shoes.

The purpose of the study could be expressed by the following research question.

Assessment factors, which influence the youth to buy sports shoes?

3. LITERATURE REVIEW

The Definition: Consumer-buying behavior according to Kotler (2004, p.601) is defined

as “The buying behavior consumers – individuals and house holds who buy goods and

services for personal consumption.” the term ‘consumer’ can be described as a person

who acquires goods and services for self satisfaction is often used to describe two

different kinds of consuming entities: the personal consumers and the organizational

consumers. The personal consumers buy goods and services for his/her own use. In this

context the goods are bought for final use by individual, who are organizational

consumers, encompasses for profit and not for profit business, government agencies,

institutions, all of them must buy products, equipment and services in order to run their

organization (Kotler, 2004).

Peter and Olson, (1993) mention that interactions between the peoples emotions, moods,

affection and specific feelings is called consumer behavior, in other words in

environmental events which they exchange ideas and benefits each is called consumer

behavior . Buying behavior of people, who purchase products for personal use and not for

business purposes (Peter and Olson, 1993).

The Physical actions of consumers that can directly observe and measured by others, by

influencing behavior profit can be earned (kotler, Armstrong and Cunningham, 1989).

The study of consumer behavior has evolved in early emphasis on rational choice

(microeconomics and classical decision theory) to focus on apparently irrational buying

needs (some motivation research) and the use of logical flow models of bounded

rationality (Howard and Sheth 1989). The latter approach has depended into what is often

called the ‘information processing model’ (Bettman 1979). The information processing

model regards the consumer as a logical thinker who solves problem to make purchasing

decision (Holbrook and Hirschman 1980).

Compares the four major approaches to create successful inter-organizational

relationships and integrates them into a single prescription for managing important inter –

firm relationships (Palmatier, Dant and Grewal, 2007). Service fails, in satisfying the

customers and developing customer loyalty over time in business to business markets.

Cyert (1956) may have been the first to observe that a number of managers in addition to

the purchasing agents are involved in buying process, and the concept was labeled

‘buying behavior’ and popularized by Robinson (Faris and Win 1967). Webster and

Wind (1972) famously identified five buying roles, they are: 1. users 2. Influencer

3.buyer 4. decider and 5 Gatekeeper (Webster and wind, 1972). Further categories have

been suggested as the ‘initiator’ (Bonoma, 1981), and the ‘analyst’ and spectator by

Wilson (Wilson, 1998).

The product purchase decision is not always done by the user. The buyer necessarily

purchases the product. Marketers must decide at whom to direct their promotional efforts,

the buyer or the user. They must identify the person who is most likely to influence the

decision. If the marketers understand consumer behavior, they are able to predict how

consumers are likely to react to various informational and environmental cues, and are

able to shape their marketing strategies accordingly (kotler, 1994).

The consumer behavior influences are follows:

The consumer behavior influences in 3 aspects, they are acquiring, using and disposing.

The acquiring means that how the consumer spends money on the products, such as

leasing, trading and borrowing. Using means some of the consumers use the high price

products and some of the consumer sees the quality. Disposing is nothing but

distribution, order or places a particular product (Hoyer, Deborah, 2001).

By understanding consumer behavior deeply, different authors have given different

information about the consumer behavior, how consumer buys the products, it involves

four steps they are: need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives,

purchase decision and post purchase behavior, the marketer can pick up many clues as

and how to meet the buyer need and develop an effective program to support an attractive

offer to the target market (Kanuk, 1990).

According to Kotler (1994), the Consumers buying decision process is influenced by four

steps those are as follows:

• Types of consumer buying decision behavior:

  Consumer buying behavior decision-making varies with the type buying decision.

  There are different types of buying behavior decisions.

• Complex buying behavior: Consumers undertake complex buying behavior when they

  are highly involved in purchase and complex buying behavior and perceive significant

  difference among the brands. Consumers may be highly involved when the product are

  expensive, risky, purchased in frequently and are highly expensive (Kotler, 1994).

• Dissonance – Reducing buying behavior occurs when consumers are highly involved

  with an expensive, infrequent or risky purchase, but sees little difference among various

  brands (Kotler, 1994).

• Variety – Consumers undertake variety seeking buying behavior in situations

  characterized by low consumer involvement, but significant perceived brand difference.

In such cases, consumers often do a lot brand scrutiny (Kotler, 1994).

4. THE BUYING DECISION PROCESS

• Introduction of buying decision process

  Consumers make many buying decisions every day. Mostly large companies do extensive

  research on consumer buying decision, to answer questions like what does consumer buy,

  where they buy, how they buy, how much they buy, when they buy and why do they buy

  a product, for this question to reorganize the decision different stages needed they are,

  information search, and evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision and post purchase

  decision etc., The consumer passes through all five stages with every purchase, but in

  more routine purchases, consumers often skip or reverse some of these stages (Hawkins,

  Coney, 1998).

• The buying decision process

  The buying process starts with need recognition, where as buyer recognize the need. The

  buyer’s decision is depending on his/her internal & external stimuli of consumer

  behavior. The internal and external stimuli of consumer behavior means that the

  consumer, which product should purchase, how much wants to purchase and externally

  which products are more reliable and usable. According to this internal and external

  stimuli’s the buyer will take the decision (Hawkins, Coney, 1998).

• The consumers are searching the information from the various sources those are

  information search, personal source, commercial sources, public sources and

  experimental sources; this is also process of the buying decision process before purchase

  of the product (Hawkins, Coney, 1998).

  Information search: The consumer can obtain information from any of several sources,

  which includes:

  Personal source: family, friends, neighbors, acquaintance etc.

  Commercial sources: advertising, sales people, dealers, packaging, displays.

  Public sources: mass media, consumer-rating organizations etc.

  Experimental sources: handling, examining, using of the product.

  Consumers receive most of the information about a product from commercial sources,

  which are controlled by the marketer. The most effective source however tend to be

  personal. Personal sources appear to be even more important in influencing the purchase.

• Evaluation of Alternatives: The consumer evaluates all the alternatives available to

  him/her to arrive at a brand choice. The consumer will see the product as a bundle of

  attributes with varying capacities, which satisfies his or her needs. The consumer will pay

  more attention to those attributes connected with their needs. The consumer is likely to

  develop a set of brand beliefs about, where each brand stands on each attribute. These of

  beliefs held about the particular brand is known as brand image, according to the beliefs

  and preferences of the consumer, evaluates the alternative products instead of using

  existing products (Kotler, 2004).

• Purchase decision: In the evaluation stage, the consumer ranks all the brands and

  makes a purchase intention. Generally the consumer purchase decision is to buy the most

  preferred brand, when purchasing a products, consumer will think about two things,

  which can be, purchase decision and purchase intention. The attitude of others and

  unexpected situation factors both directly or indirectly effects the consumer’s final

  decision to buy a particular brand. (Kotler, 2004).

• Post purchase behavior: The buyers’ job does not end when the product is brought.

  After purchasing the product, the consumer will be satisfied or dissatisfied and will be

  engaged in post purchase behavior. The satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the purchase of a

  particular product depends on the relationship between the consumer expectation and the

  consumer disappointment, if it meets the consumer expectations, the consumer can get

  satisfied. And if it exceeds he/she is delighted (Gilly and Gelb, 1986).

5. THEORETICAL FRAME WORK

• Consumer Involvement Theory

  The consumer involvement theory means that, how the consumer involving the purchase

  of various products in the market, after purchasing the product, how the consumer

  responding towards the products called consumer involvement theory.

  The consumers get the information through advertising, for that they purchase, use, and

  react that they see and hear about the products that they buy (Barry, 1987).

  Level of involvement an individual’s intensity of interest in a product and the importance

  of the product for that person, those are enduring involvement and situational

  involvement (Homewood IL & Irwin, 1987). Routinized response behavior is that the

  process used when buying frequently purchased low-cost items that requires little search-

  and decision-effort (Homewood IL & Irwin, 1987).

The consumer involved in purchasing of products and usage and, also, various aspects

like high involvement and low involvement in process of purchasing of products. The

consumer some times involves high and low in purchasing products, so, theory of

involvement is explaining that the consumer recognizes the importance of the purchase

and it considers that the degree of perceived risk, moreover, it reflects on self image

perhaps information processing may be different from one another (Ray, 1973). The low

involvement theory is explaining that the consumer would accept wide range of products

with positive attitude with do-feel-learn strategy, firstly the consumer select any kind of

product, use the product, if they are not sure about how to use the product, and they learn

how to use the product. To purchase a new computer in market and using of the

computer, if they are not satisfied then they go for learning of how to use the computer.

The low involvement of consumer will be in manner that do-feel-learn strategy (Ray,

1973). In one of the consumer article author explained about the consumers, are

influenced by television commercials and their relationship effectiveness of

advertisements (Krugman 1987).

High involvement theory is rational and emotional, and it is explaining about the

consumer’s participations in the context very actively without any hesitation, moreover,

they look after extensive problem solving. In this theory of involvement the consumers

learn about the product, use the product, if they are feeling that the product is comfortable

to use it, and then they go for buying the product, so this is called high involvement

because after usage, they definitely buy the products. The high involvement theory is

reversible order to low involvement theory like learn-feel-do strategy (Debruicker, 1979).

How the involvement theory is useful, the emotions, specific feelings, learning of every

product and involves when they want to use it and when they want to purchase it. So, this

theory helps when the consumer purchasing any kind of product or after using the

product.

6. CONSUMER BEHAVIOR MODELS

• Introduction & Intergradations of three models

• There are three types of models, which will explain about consumer’s process of basic

  needs to selecting one particular product, In order to process consumer behavior the

  following three models are important, the first and foremost model is that the Hierarchy

  model of consumer behavior, in this model the author said that, without any basic needs

  the consumer can not survive, so, the consumer should have some basic needs, which

  have been explained below, secondly the consumer behavior model. In this model author

  mentioned about research and planning, in this process, the researchers are taking

  samples from consumer before manufacturing the new products in the market. Finally,

  lens model has been explained that in order to choice/select a product by the consumer.

  Most early psychologists studied people who had psychological problems, but Maslow

  Hierarchy needs tells us about the needs of consumer behavior.

• Hierarchy needs of consumer behavior model (Simons, Irwin and Drinnien, 1987)

  Maslow believes that people seek to fulfill five categories of needs.

(Simons, Irwin and Drinnien, 1987)

Maslow’s given the hierarchy needs for consumer behavior, before starting about the

consumer behavior, the consumer needs are important; usually every consumer have

some hierarchy needs, they are; self actualization needs, esteem needs, belonging needs,

safety and security needs and psychological needs (Simons, Irwin and Drinnien, 1987).

The self actualization needs: The term actualization means that the intrinsic growth of

what is already in the organism, or more accurately, of what the organism is called self

actualization needs. For example: one can play the music, he is called musician or artist,

and one can paint the art is called painter, one can write the poems, is called poet. For

surviving in competitive world one profession is important, this profession is not only for

surviving, but also one kind of need for human being. In small words to understand

simply one individual potentiality develop him by doing something; it is called the self

actualization (Simons, Irwin and Drinnien, 1987).

The author suggests that the self actualization need is important when the consumer

wants to survive, consumer came with new professions, and it is one kind of need, it will

help the consumer to survive in this competitive world (Simons, Irwin and Drinnien,

1987).

Esteem needs: The term esteem means that need for things that reflect on self-esteem,

personal worth, social recognition, and accomplishment, for example one can travel in the bus,

motor bike, and car respectively, depends on his/her financial position they can travel. In

this case travel is a need, so, in smaller words, if one can economically sound, then

he/she arranges the esteemed need according to their financial possession (Simons, Irwin

and Drinnien, 1987). The author said that, if she/he needs the esteem needs, then they

should have good economic possession, if not no necessary to maintain the car or motor

bike, it is very easy to use the public bus or walk (Simons, Irwin and Drinnien, 1987).

Social needs: The social needs includes love of family or friends, for example, the boy

loves his girl friend, the relationship between husband and wife, one child belongs to one

family This is called belongingness or love (Simons, Irwin and Drinnien, 1987). This is

one kind of need for every consumer, because every consumer has their personal

belongingness and love.

Safety needs: The safety might include living in an area away from threats. This level is

more likely to be found in children as they have a greater need to feel safe. For example

one wants to live safe and secure life in the society. Finally, always consumer wants to

live a life, which is safe and secured (Simons, Irwin and Drinnien, 1987).

Physiological needs: It includes the very basic need air, warmth, food, sleep, stimulation

and activity. People can die due to lack of biological needs and equilibrium common

needs like food, water, oxygen and other common minimum needs are wanted for every

one to survive in the world. This is also a basic need of consumer (Simons, Irwin and

Drinnien, 1987)

• Consumer behavior model

The concept of consumer behavior model is that, all the consumer minds are not the

same, because every consumer thinks in different manner and purchasing of products also

different.

The below figure is saying about the research and planning, now a days the products are

many, the consumer is attracting towards new products and its features. The

manufacturing companies are designing the products, before manufacturing of new

products the researchers are taking the samples for research from the consumers, after

taking the samples from the consumers, researchers are doing the research about the

products, it encourages companies to constantly innovate better ways to serve the

consumer needs (Yeowzah, 2003).

The research & planning depending on product design, insights and action. As author

saying about the design, if products designs are good then every consumer attracted

towards purchasing of new products, the product design is possible only by doing

research. The insights is nothing but the product features, the product features are depend

upon good research and planning, without any research and planning there is no product

as such. In between these two aspects the action takes place to do good research and to

get good results in the market (Yeowzah, 2003).

2. Consumer behavior model (Yeowzah, 2003)

http://www.yeowzah.com/consumer_behavior_model.htm

The significance of consumer behavior decision theory in some cases consumer has clear

and strong choice or preference for particular product to purchase. According to the

customer preference, companies can increase their sales to develop the 4 P’s marketing to

affect the customer preference and test. Company can design the product to attract the

customer to make the better sales. To analyze the competitor activity and make the most

battle plan to fight in to the market (Hauser, 1993).

• Lens Model

Product Features

Perceptions

Preferences

Psycho-social cues

Availability, Price

Choice

Lens model (Hauser, 1993)

Description: The above lens model says that, the product features and perceptions are

inter dependent, because the consumer see the product features before purchasing any

product in the market, the product features arrow showing towards perception, the

perception is nothing but understanding of the product, in this process consumer will

understand about the product, after understanding the product, the perceptions is going to

be preference of various products (Hauser, 1993).

In this process of preference product, the consumer prefers the products, after preferring

the product, consumer select the particular product that is called choice. The final arrow

showing towards choice, but this whole process depends on consumer psycho-social cues

and availability & price of the products in the market (Hauser, 1993).

The second way is that the psycho-social cues and perceptions are also inter dependent

with the help of these two terms the consumer prefers the product and finally

choose/select the product (Hauser, 1993).

The third way is that the consumer chooses the product with the help of psycho-social

cues, which means psychological influences, understanding of the product and

availability & price of the products (Hauser, 1993).

NIKE’S INTRODUCTION (NIKE’S CASE STUDIES)

The company was established in 1968. Philip H. Knight is the chairman and CEO of the

company. The first idea was given by Philip knight to manufacture the shoes, the idea

behind this concept is that, when he was studying MBA in Stanford University in USA,

he completed the course and he was trying to do the project in different marketing

contexts, for this project, he went to Japan to do project in tiger shoes in Japan, it is one

of the best shoes brands in Japan, at the same time he presented himself as an American

representative and started manufacturing of shoes and he has given name for that

company is blue ribbon sports company later on he has changed the name Nike.

Later he started manufacturing shoes, apparel and equipments and he renamed his

company name like Nike hope for the best to happen after some time he turned in to his

coach Bill bower man in his school for what to do next in this industry. So, Bill bower

man came up with new idea. In 1979 the Nike was the world’s top companies in the

world. Nike mainly concentrated on athletics, the main competitors was Reebok and

Adidas. Now Ni