Know about the consumer behavior and shopping decision before starting your small business

Before making your small business marketing strategy, you should know about consumer behavior and their marketing decision. The consumers think, feel, reason, and select between different alternatives such as brands, products, and retailers, before purchasing the products or services. And there is also a psychology of how the consumer is influenced by his or her environment (e.g., culture, family, signs, and media. This defines that how consumer motivation and decision strategies differ between products that differ in their level of importance or interest that they entail for the consumer, how marketers can adapt and improve their marketing campaigns and marketing strategies to more effectively reach the consumer.

A few trends that impact the market these days:

• ·        How rapid the product (or service) is going to be
• ·        What is the likely impact on consumption and its growth / trends?
• ·        Changing family structure and its future trend
• ·        Demographic changes of consumers in coming years
• ·        How is it going to impact shopping behaviors?
• ·        How is it going to impact the spending power and hence consumption?

It is true that spending habits varies on different sections of society and different demographic areas. But it is changing due to their growing disposable income, relative increase in the younger population and the change in attitude towards shopping.

In urban areas, rapid advances witnessed by India in areas like education, communication, information technology, transportation and retail gave created a sense of freedom in the minds of people. These advances have led to a paradigm shift in the way Indian consumers behave today. Consumers are seeking convenience at their doorstep for regular purchases, but are willing to travel to exclusive destinations for valuable items. With Indian consumers maturing to self-service formats, reliance on salesmen is on the decline.

But in case of rural market, rural consumers are fundamentally very different from urban consumers. A majority of them are farmers and naturally, the rural spending basket differs from urban spending, as it not only consists of personal and household items but also occupational expenditure like fertilizers, seeds, pesticides and so on. 

Consumer facing companies in sectors like goods, financial products, healthcare, consumer durables, personal care, household products and apparels need to be aware of such discontinuities taking place in their consumer base. It would be imperative for them to revisit their strategies to avoid being caught off guard.