literature review example consumer behaviour

Customer experience: a systematic literature review and consumer culture theory-based conceptualisation

• Published: 15 February 2020
• Volume 71 , pages 135–176, ( 2021 )

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• Muhammad Waqas 1 ,
• Zalfa Laili Binti Hamzah 1 &
• Noor Akma Mohd Salleh 2  

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The study aims to summarise and classify the existing research and to better understand the past, present, and the future state of the theory of customer experience. The main objectives of this study are to categorise and summarise the customer experience research, identify the extant theoretical perspectives that are used to conceptualise the customer experience, present a new conceptualisation and conceptual model of customer experience based on consumer culture theory and to highlight the emerging trends and gaps in the literature of customer experience. To achieve the stated objectives, an extensive literature review of existing customer experience research was carried out covering 49 journals. A total of 99 empirical and conceptual articles on customer experience from the year 1998 to 2019 was analysed based on different criteria. The findings of this study contribute to the knowledge by highlighting the role of customer attribution of meanings in defining their experiences and how such experiences can predict consumer behaviour.

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We would like to thank editor-in-chief (Prof. Dr Joern Block), and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on this paper.

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Waqas, M., Hamzah, Z.L.B. & Salleh, N.A.M. Customer experience: a systematic literature review and consumer culture theory-based conceptualisation. Manag Rev Q 71 , 135–176 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-020-00182-w

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-020-00182-w

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A Brief Literature Review on Consumer Buying Behaviour

Introduction

It is worth noting that consumer buying behaviour is studied as a part of the marketing and its main objective it to learn the way how the individuals, groups or organizations choose, buy use and dispose the goods and the factors such as their previous experience, taste, price and branding on which the consumers base their purchasing decisions (Kotler and Keller, 2012).

One of such studies of consumer buying behaviour has been conducted by Acebron et al (2000). The aim of the study was to analyze the impact of previous experience on buying behaviour of fresh foods, particularly mussels. In their studies the authors used structural equation model in order to identify the relationship between the habits and previous experience on the consumer buying decision. Their findings show that personal habits and previous experience on of the consumers have a direct impact on the consumers’ purchase decision in the example of purchasing fresh mussels. They also found that the image of the product has a crucial impact on the purchasing decision of the consumer and further recommended that the product image should continuously be improved in order to encourage the consumers towards purchasing.

Another study conducted by Variawa (2010) analyzed the influence of packaging on consumer decision making process for Fast Moving Consumer Goods. The aim of the research was to analyze the impact of packaging for decision making processes of low-income consumers in retail shopping. A survey method has been used in order to reach the research objectives. In a survey conducted in Star Hyper in the town of Canterville 250 respondents participated. The findings of the research indicate that low-income consumers have more preferences towards premium packaging as this can also be re-used after the product has been consumed. Although the findings indicate that there is a weak relationship between the product packaging and brand experience. However, it has been proven by the findings of the research that low-income consumers have greater brand experience from the purchase of ‘premium’ products when compared to their experience from purchasing ‘cheap’ brand products.

Lee (2005) carried out study to learn the five stages of consumer decision making process in the example of China. The researcher focuses on the facts that affect the consumer decision making process on purchasing imported health food products, in particular demographic effects such as gender, education, income and marital status. The author employed questionnaire method in order to reach the objectives of the research. Analysis of five stages of consumer decision making process indicate that impact of family members on the consumer decision making process of purchasing imported health food products was significant.

The author further explains this by the fact Chinese tradition of taking care of young and old family members have long been developed and marriage is considered to be extremely important in Chinese tradition. This reflects in the findings of the study that the purchase of imported health food products made by a person for the people outside the family is declined significantly by both male and female Chinese after they get married.

Five Stages Model of consumer decision making process has also been studied by a number of other researchers. Although different researchers offer various tendencies towards the definitions of five stages, all of them have common views as they describe the stages in similar ways. One of the common models of consumer decision making process has been offered by Blackwell et al (2006). According to him, the five stages of consumer decision making process are followings: problem/need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision made and post-purchase evaluation.

Each stage is then defined by a number of researchers varying slightly but leading to a common view about what each stage involves. For example, according to Bruner (1993) first stage, need recognition occurs when an individual recognizes the difference between what they have and what they want/need to have. This view is also supported by Neal and Questel (2006) stating that need recognition occurs due to several factors and circumstances such as personal, professional and lifestyle which in turn lead to formation of idea of purchasing.

In the next stage, consumer searches information related to desired product or service (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2007). Information search process can be internal and external. While internal search refers to the process where consumers rely on their personal experiences and believes, external search involves wide search of information which includes addressing the media and advertising or feedbacks from other people (Rose and Samouel, 2009).

Once the relevant information about the product or service is obtained the next stage involves analyzing the alternatives. Kotler and Keller (2005) consider this stage as one of the important stages as the consumer considers all the types and alternatives taking into account the factors such as size, quality and also price.

Backhaus et al (2007) suggested that purchase decision is one of the important stages as this stage refers to occurrence of transaction. In other words, once the consumer recognized the need, searched for relevant information and considered the alternatives he/she makes decision whether or not to make the decision. Purchasing decision can further be divided into planned purchase, partially purchase or impulse purchase as stated by Kacen (2002) which will be discussed further in detail in the next chapters.

Finally, post-purchase decision involves experience of the consumer about their purchase. Although the importance of this stage is not highlighted by many authors Neal et al (2004) argues that this is perhaps one of the most important stages in the consumer decision making process as it directly affects the consumers’ purchases of the same product or service from the same supplier in the future.

The most noteworthy writers that serve as academic advocates of The Five Stage Model of consumer decision making include Tyagi (2004), Kahle and Close (2006) Blackwell et al. (2006), and others.

It is important to note that The Five Stage Model is not the only model related to consumer decision-making, and there are also a range of competing models that include Stimulus-Organism-Response Model of Decision Making developed by Hebb in 1950’s, Prescriptive Cognitive Models, The Theory of Trying (Bagozzi and Warsaw, 1990), Model of Goal Directed Behaviour (Perugini and Bagozzi, 2001) and others. All of these models are analysed in great detail in Literature Review chapter of this work.

Factors Impacting Consumer Buyer Behaviour

It has been established that the consumer buying behaviour is the outcome of the needs and wants of the consumer and they purchase to satisfy these needs and wants. Although it sounds simple and clear, these needs can be various depending on the personal factors such as age, psychology and personality. Also there are some other external factors which are broad and beyond the control of the consumer.

A number of researches have been carried out by academics and scholars on identifying and analyzing those factors affecting the consumers’ buying behaviour and as a result, various types of factors have been identified. These factors have been classified into different types and categories in different ways by different authors. For instance, Wiedermann et al (2007) classified them into internal and external factor. On the other hand, Winer (2009) divided them into social, personal and psychological factors. Despite the fact that they have been classified into different groups by different authors they are similar in scope and purpose (Rao, 2007).

There is a wide range of factors that can affect consumer behaviour in different ways. These factors are divided by Hoyer et al. (2012) into four broad categories: situational, personal, social and cultural factors.

Situational factors impacting consumer behaviour may include location, environment, timing and even weather conditions (Hoyer et al., 2012). In order to benefit from situational factors major retailers attempt to construct environment and situations in stores that motivate perspective customers to make purchase decision. Range of available tools to achieve such an outcome include playing relaxing music in stores, producing refreshing smells in stores and placing bread and milk products in supermarkets towards the opposite end of stores to facilitate movement of customers throughout the store to make additional purchases etc.

The temporary nature of situational factors is rightly stressed by Batra and Kazmi (2008).

Personal factors, on the other hand, include taste preferences, personal financial circumstances and related factors. The impact of personal factors on consumer decision-making is usually addressed by businesses during market segmentation, targeting and positioning practices by grouping individuals on the basis of their personal circumstances along with other criteria, and developing products and services that accommodate these circumstances in the most effective manner.

According to Hoyer et al. (2012) social factors impacting consumer behaviour arise as a result of interactions of perspective consumers with others in various levels and circumstances. Targeting members of society perceived as opinion leaders usually proves effective strategy when marketing products and services due to the potential of opinion leaders to influence behaviour of other members of society as consumers.

Lastly, cultural factors affecting consumer behaviour are related to cross-cultural differences amongst consumers on local and global scales. Culture can be defined as “the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2015) and the tendency of globalisation has made it compulsory for cross-cultural differences amongst consumers to be taken into account when formulating and communicating marketing messages.

Marketing mix and consumer behaviour

Marketing mix or 4Ps of marketing is one of the major concepts in the field of marketing and each individual element of marketing mix can be adopted as an instrument in order to affect consumer behaviour.

Importance of the marketing mix can be explained in a way that “successful marketing depends on customers being aware of the products or services on offer, finding them available in favourably judging that practitioners of the offering in terms of both price and performance” (Meldrum and McDonald, 2007, p.4).

Core elements of marketing mix consist of product, price, place and promotion. Marketing mix has been expanded to comprise additional 3Ps as processes, people and physical evidence.

Product element of marketing mix relates to products and services that are offered to customers to be purchased. Products can have three levels: core, actual and supporting products. For example, core product in relation to mobile phones can be explained as the possibility to communicate with other people in distance.  Actual product, on the other hand, relates to specific brand and model of a mobile phone, whereas augmented product may relate to product insurance and one-year warranty associated with the purchase of a mobile phone.

Price represents another critically important element of marketing and four major types of pricing strategies consist of economy, penetration, skimming, and premium pricing strategies (East et al., 2013).

Place element of marketing mix relates to point of distribution and sales of products and services. Advent of online sales channel has changed the role of place element of marketing mix to a considerable extent.

Promotion element of marketing mix refers to any combination of promotion mix integrating various elements of advertising, public relations, personal selling and sales promotions to varying extents (Kotler, 2012).

Processes, on the other hand, refer to business procedures and policies related to products and services. For example, integration of a greater range of payment systems such as PayPal, SAGE Pay and Visa in online sales procedures may have positive implications on the volume of sales by creating payment convenience to customers.

People element of marketing mix is primarily related to skills and competencies of the workforce responsible for customer service aspect of the business. Importance of people element of marketing mix in general, and providing personalised customer services in particular is greater today than ever before.

Physical evidence relates to visual tangible aspects of a brand and its products. For instance, for a large supermarket chain such as Sainsbury’s physical evidence is associated with design and layout of a store, quality of baskets and trolleys, layout of shelves within the store etc.

It can be forecasted that further intensification of competition in global markets and more intensive search of businesses for additional bases for competitive advantage may result in emergence of additional ‘P’s to compliment the framework of marketing mix in the future.

Bagozzi, R. & Warsaw, L. (1990) “Trying to Consumer” Journal of Consumer Research 17, (2) pp. 127 – 140.

Backhaus, K. Hillig, T. and Wilken, R. (2007) “Predicting purchase decision with different conjoint analysis methods”, International Journal of Market Research . 49(3). Pp. 341-364.

Batra, S.K. & Kazmi, S. (2008) “Consumer Behaviour” 2 nd edition, EXCEL Books

Blackwell, R., Miniard, P. and Engel, J. (2006) “Consumer behavior”, Mason: Thompson

Culture (2015) Oxford Dictionaries, Available at: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/culture

East, R., Wright, M. & Vanhuele, M. (2013) “Consumer Behaviour: Applications in Marketing” 2 nd edition, SAGE

Hoyer, W.D. & Macinnis, D.J. (2008) “Consumer Behaviour”, 5 th edition, Cengage Learning

Hoyer, W.D., Macinnis, D.J. & Pieters, R. (2012) “Consumer Behaviour” 6 th edition

Kacen. J. J. and Lee. J. A., (2002) “The influence of culture on consumer impulsive buying behaviour”, Journal of consumer psychology. 12(2), pp. 163-174.

Kahle L.R. and Close, A. (2006) “Consumer Behaviour Knowledge for Effective Sports and Event Marketing”, Taylor & Francis, New York, USA

Kotler, P.  (2012) “Kotler on Marketing” The Free Press

Meldrum, M. & McDonald, M. (2007) “Marketing in a Nutshell: Key Concepts for Non-Specialists” Butterworth-Heinemann

Neal, C., Quester, P. and Pettigrew, S. (2006) “Consumer Behaviour: Implications for Marketing Strategy” (5 th edition) Berkshire: McGraw-Hill

Perugini, M. & Bagozzi, R. (2001) “The role of desires and anticipated emotions in goal-directed behaviours: Broadening and deepening the theory of planned behaviour” British Journal of Social Psychology , 40, pp. 79-98.

Rao, K. (2007) “Services Marketing”, New Delhi: Pearson Education

Rose, S. and Samouel, P., (2009) “Internal psychological versus external market-driven determinants of the amount of consumer information search amongst online shopper”, Journal of Marketing Management . 25(1/2), pp. 171-190

Schiffman, L., Hansen H. and Kanuk L. (2007) “Consumer Behaviour: A European Outlook”, London: Pearson Education

Stallworth, P. (2008) “Consumer behaviour and marketing strategic”, online, pp.9.

Tyagi, C. and Kumar, A. (2004) “Consumer Behaviour”, Atlantic Publishers, US

Wiedmann, K., Hennigs, N. and Siebels, A. (2007) “Measuring Luxury consumer perception: A cross-culture framework”, Academy of Marketing Science review , 2007(7)

Winer, R. (2009), “New Communications Approaches in Marketing: Issues and Research Directions,” Journal of Interactive Marketing , 23 (2), 108–17

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Consumer Buying Behaviour – A Literature Review

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IAEME PUBLICATION

IAEME Publication

Realizing, and as well, analyzing the purchasing behaviour of consumer is the core constituent to provide efficient consumer satisfaction. A consumer is not only purchasing a produce, but he alone determines the victory of a firm. Hence for every successful firm, there exists a consumer support behind it. That support is technically called behavioural support and behind the support there is lot of theories to analyze and discuss the various concerns involving to consumer behaviour. Since World War II, taking into account the dire need of the public, the marketers started to market and encourage the produce what the consumers needed, instead of producing what the companies prefer. The concept of understanding the behaviour of consumer emerged in late 1940’s from which it has taken into so many dimensions. This is now known as “modern concepts of marketing”. At present, Consumer behaviour is commonly influenced by social, psychoanalytic and economical approaches. Each factor openly or not directly accounts to the characteristics of a buyer. Hence it is vital to be aware of the role of factors influencing the buying nature of consumer. The main iota of this research paper is to analyze the theoretical underpinnings and factors involved in consumer behaviour and its implications, in the light of developments crop upped in the recent past.

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Consumer behaviour can be defined as the decisions and actions taken by the consumers which influence their purchasing behaviour. Consumers' response to external stimulus either in form of marketing strategies or personal, economic and social attributes and their decision and buying behaviour is largely affected by this stimulus. It is thus, an inter-disciplinary social science that draws upon the disciplines of anthropology, psychology, sociology and marketing apart from economics. Therefore, many marketers often believe that a clear understanding of the buying behaviour of the consumers helps to analyse both past, present and future market scenario. The examination of the economic theories is helpful in identifying the consumer behaviour from the perspective of utility, prices and other economic aspects. But they do not reflect the perceptions or attitude of a consumer towards a product. So, to understand the consumer behaviour, a more holistic approach is required, that involves economic, non-economic theories and the decision making models. This paper is an attempt to understand the economic and psychological theories that influences the consumer behaviour. Further, an attempt has been made to correlate the consumer behaviour theories and consumer decision making models to explain the factors affecting the buying decisions of the consumers.

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