Introduction to Marketing and Purchasing

Question: Discuss about the Introduction to Marketing and Purchasing. Answer: Background information: Proper understanding of the purchasing decision of the customers is extremely important in order to achieve all the aims and goals of the businesses. The study will focus on one of the most popular sports equipment providers namely Nike. The focus organization is an American multinational organization that develops, design, manufacture and market apparel, footwear and other accessories for sustaining its position in the market. The revenue level of Nike was estimated around $31 billion in 2015, which make them one of the biggest names in the sector (nike.com 2017). However, Nike have to face extreme competition from different other global organizations like Adidas, Puma and Reebok for maintaining the profit at the desired level. As a result, it would provide lot of alternative opportunities for the customers at the time of taking purchasing decision regarding sports equipments. Now, in order to evaluate the purchasing decision of the customers, the study has selected two respondents namely James and Adams. Both the respondents have recently purchased sports equipment from the Nike. Now, Adams is 21 years old Sydney based college student whereas James is 35 years old Melbourne based working personnel. The study would try to highlight the factors that have influenced these selected respondents from different age and geographical region to purchase products of Nike. The study would focus on assessing whether the purchasing decisions are made from habit or it was an extreme low involvement decision. It would help Nike to make certain necessary adjustments to keep the sales volume at the desired level. Description of the purchase decision-making process: According to Powers et al. (2012), purchase decision-making process of the customers focuses on systematic identification of factors. Here, Adams has mentioned that he participated in college and other sports activities on regular basis. For that reason, Adams often has to purchase sports equipments to fulfil the requirements. It has influenced Adams to evaluate and compare all alternative products at the time of purchasing a product. For instance, Adams looks to identify the problem associated with the sports activity requirements to assess the exact type of product it requires. Thereafter, purchasing decision of Adams tries to identify best possible products available in the market for fulfilling the needs. After identification of all the available substitute products, Adams has tried to identify the cost and benefits of the products. In case of benefits, Adams has focused on collecting feedback from friends and others regarding the kind of benefits one can avail by purchasing spec ific brands. Adams also has tried to analyze the available ways for purchasing any specific branded sporting equipment. It highlights the fact that Adams is not really biased or habituated of any particular brand. In fact, it has tried to evaluate all possible aspects related to sports equipments in order to conclude. Thus, Adams has utilized a high involvement purchasing decision for fulfilling all the needs. On the contrary, James has expressed his loyalty towards all the products of Nike, as he is using same brand from childhood. Therefore, James has tried to identify the best available sports equipments offered by Nike. James has also mentioned that he has not considered of assessing other branded products available in the market, as he would never look to switch to any other sports equipment manufacturing brands. James has mentioned that all the purchased products of Nike have fulfilled all the expectations until now. For that reason, he did not find any good reason to switch brand. James has highlighted busy work schedule that provides very little opportunity to remain active in sports field. For that reason, James very rarely purchased any sporting apparel and accessories. As a result, it has diverted the attention of James from analyzing any other brands for fulfilling the needs (Jang, Prasad and Ratchford 2012). James has recently purchased sporting equipments, as his personal doc tor has mentioned to exercise at morning on regular basis. Thus, it can be assessed that purchasing decision of James has occurred more of habit, as he shown no interest in judging the quality of other branded products. Discussion and comparison with academic literature: As per the article by Hudson and Thal (2013), the purchase is decision-making process utilized by the customers regarding market transactions during, before and after the purchase of a particular product or service. Decision-making is a psychological construct that make people to behave in a certain way. Many studies have highlighted five steps including need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision and post purchase behaviour for purchase decision-making process. It has been assessed that performing all these mentioned steps is the traditional way to purchase best available products from the market. Now, the above interview has highlighted the fact that Adams has followed conventional purchasing process for completing the task. On the contrary, James had not followed the conventional five-step approach at the time of taking purchasing decision. Now, Kuvykaite, Dovaliene and Navickiene (2015) have mentioned that it is necessary for the customers to utilize all the five steps for selecting best available product or service for satisfying the needs. It allows customers to understand the kind of cost and benefit a particular product will provide for fulfilling the customers needs. For that reason, it can be mentioned that Adams is more likely to fulfil all the needs in an effective manner. On the other hand, there is higher probability that James might not able to fulfil all the requirements with the implemented purchased decision. Karimi (2013) have emphasizes on the fact that teenagers are more likely to evaluate all the available products at the time of purchasing any products due to lack of financial supports. On the other hand, people around 35 to 40 years are likely to have greater income, which can induce them not to evaluate all the available products for best utility (Reza Jalilvand and Samiei 2012). In case of the selected two respondents, exact same thing had happen, as James does not even look to cover all the step s at the time of developing purchasing decision. As described by Mihart (2012) customer involvement is another key factor for utilizing purchase decision-making process in an effective manner. It has been assessed high customer involvement always allow to analyze all aspect of a particular product before final purchase. On the other hand, low customer involvement induces customers not to analyze all the brands in an effective manner. Therefore, low involvement in the purchasing decision can create major impact on the overall fulfilment of needs and wants (Godey et al. 2012). Now, from the evaluation of the above two interviews, it can be assessed that Adams exhibits greater involvement in the purchasing decision. On the other hand, James has not focused too much on providing greater importance at the time of purchasing sports equipments. For that reason, James has depicted low involvement purchase that might fails to fulfil the actual objective of purchasing Nike product. The analysis of the interview process of these two respondents has provided two distinct ways through which people purchase products. It can be easily make out that curiousness of Adams of testing all the available brands is likely to fulfil all the needs in an appropriate manner (Wang, Yu and Wei 2012). It also highlighted the fact that Adams purchasing decision involves relatively lesser amount of risk that the purchased decision might not able to fulfil the requirements of the customers. In fact, it is more likely to fulfil all the needs, which eventually induce customers to remain loyal to the particular brand (Rawal 2013). On the other hand, James purchasing decision policy induces greater amount of risks, as it might not be the optimum choice for the customers. It has also established the fact that real life purchasing decision does not necessary happens according the developed model of purchasing decisions. In fact, there are several other factors like urgency of the requireme nts, personal habit, influence from friends and family members and many other external factors can have major impact on the purchasing decision of the people (Bakshi 2012). Recommendation and conclusion: From above discussed interview and literature section, it can be assessed that proper understanding of the customer purchasing decision-making process is required for fulfilling business aims and objectives. However, the study has highlighted the fact that customers can actually develop purchase decision in two complete distinct ways. In case of traditional systematic decision-making process, organizations can actually implement several marketing and product development strategies to keep the customers associated for long timeframe. It also allows customers to select best products available in the market. 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