Consumption and Post-Purchase Behavior

• Many different types of consumption
• Ritual, sacred, profane, and compulsive consumption
• Customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction
• Purchase-associated cognitive dissonance
• Post-purchase behavior
• Product disposition

Product and Service Consumption

• Consumption is the possession and/or use of goods and services and the benefits they deliver.
• Consumption situation
• Physical context: time and place of consumption
• Social context: the presence of others
• Consumption episode: the set of items belonging to the same event and occurring in temporal proximity
• Consumption system: a bundle of goods and services that are consumed over time in multiple episodes

Types of Consumption Situations

• Extensive marketer control
• Marketers are present during consumption and can both watch and influence how it plays out (e.g., services).
• Limited marketer control
• Marketers can easily see and may be able to influence the consumption situation of goods and services that are usually consumed close to the place of purchase (e.g., outdoor vendors).
• No marketer control - discuss possible misuses, problems with free samples

Ritual Consumption

• Rituals are patterns of behavior tied to events that we consider important in our lives, perhaps from our cultures, our religious background, our traditions, etc.
• They have some special symbolic meaning
• They occur in a fixed or predictable manner
• They are repeated with some regularity
• Ritual consumption is the consumption of goods and services which is tied to specific rituals.
• Artifacts are the items used in a ritual

Sacred and Profane Consumption

• Sacred consumption is related to special events that are out of the ordinary (e.g., holidays, rites of passage, religious events).
• Profane consumption is related to events that are a part of everyday life.
• Sacralization occurs when objects, places, people, and events are transformed from the profane to the sacred.
• Desacralization refers to the loss of sacred status.

Sacred and Profane Consumption

• Name some items that are sacred in one culture that might not be sacred in another.
• Name some items that are used in cultural rituals that may “become sacred” when used in that ritual.
• What do these distinctions mean in terms of consumer behavior?

Some items become sacred since they are valued as parts of collections
http://www.collectingchannel.com/
Advertising • American West • Autographs
Black Americana • Books/Magazines • Breweriana
Characters • Civil War • Clocks
Coin-Ops • Country Store • Cowboy
Disney • Farm • Figurines
Firefighting • Garage • Holiday
Judaica • Kitchen • Maps/Globes
Medical/Dental • Militaria • Miscellaneous
Modernism • Music Boxes • Musical Instr.
Native American • Natural History • Office Equipment
Paper/Ephemera • Pewter • Photo Equipment
Photographs • Plates • Political
Postcards • Posters/Prints • Scientific Instr.
Smoking • Soft Drinks • Souvenirs
Steins • Tools • Transportation
Vintage Couture • Wine • Worlds Fair
 

Compulsive Consumption

• It refers to a response to an uncontrollable drive or desire to obtain, use, or experience a feeling, substance, or activity that leads the individual to repetitively engage in behavior that will ultimately cause harm to the individual and/or others.
• Possible causes may include family history of alcohol or other forms of substance abuse, physical violence, divorce, or other types of emotional conflict.

Satisfaction Versus Dissatisfaction

• The level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction we experience depends upon how well the product’s performance meets our expectations.
• A finite time period of possession is necessary to determine satisfaction.
• Satisfaction is not easily measured because:
• It means different things to different people
• The level of satisfaction can change over time
• Satisfaction can change when consumer needs and preferences change
• Satisfaction includes a social dimension (the experience of others may add or subtract from our own satisfaction)

Expectation and Satisfaction

• Product experiences can be classified into three types based on the degree to which consumer expectations are fulfilled (confirmation) or not (expectancy disconfirmation):
• Simple confirmation: the purchase performs as expected (satisfaction)
• Positive disconfirmation: when performance is better than expected (much higher satisfaction)
• Negative disconfirmation: when the purchase falls short of expectations  (dissatisfaction)
• If the negative disparity is wide it may lead to the contrast effect (poor performance is magnified by the customers)

Categories of Satisfactory Performance

• Ideal: when a purchase performs as or better than expected
• Equitable: if it is adequate to the cost and effort the consumer made to obtain the product
• Expected: although the purchase works out as anticipated, it barely qualifies as satisfactory (this is the lowest level of satisfactory performance)

Relationship between Performance and Satisfaction

• Aspects of performance related to satisfaction:
• Objective performance is product-related and depends on whether the product meets all functional expectations (e.g., whether a watch keeps good time).
• Affective performance is consumer-related and depends on whether the purchase meets the emotional (benefits) expectations of the buyer (e.g., whether listening to a Pearl Jam CD makes me feel as though I’m at a live concert).

Closing the Gap between Expectation and Performance

• Marketers must understand consumer expectations and the extent to which purchases satisfy them.
• Marketers must match product benefits to consumer needs:
• Needs of target market and the benefits of the product must be of good fit
• Communication must clearly describe both the product’s benefits and the way it is to be used
• Do not raise consumer expectations beyond the actual benefits that the product offers

Purchase-Associated Cognitive Dissonance

• It occurs before even the consumer makes a determination concerning whether a product or service is satisfactory
• It is the feeling of uncertainty about whether the right choice is being made
• There is no finite time of possession or use requirement for it to occur

Factors That Cause Cognitive Dissonance

• Importance of the purchase decision
• Consumer’s tendency toward anxiety
• Finality of the purchase decision
• Clarity of the final purchase choice

Reducing Dissonance

• What consumers do:
• Try to find ways to reinforce the desirability of the choice made
• Try to make the “losing” choices look weaker
• Try to to view the choice decision as less important than they had originally thought
• What marketers must do:
• Match their products with the appropriate target consumers
• Offer clear communication, return policies, warranties, in-store demonstrations
• Make salespeople available to answer questions

Post-Purchase Behavior

• It’s as important as understanding what causes consumers to buy
• It deals with actual rather than potential customers
• It has an impact on future sales
• Information learned can be used to improve products and services, undertake better targeted promotions, and design more effective strategies to keep actual customers and attract new ones.

Positive Post-Purchase Behavior

• Customer loyalty: a feeling of commitment on the part of the consumer to a product, brand, marketer, or outlet that results in high levels of repeat purchases or outlet visits.
• Loyalty develops over time through positive market experiences.
• Loyalty phases:
• Cognitive
• Affective
• Conative
• Action

Brand Loyalty

• Fairly high levels of loyalty is evident with products that are geared to personal tastes (e.g., toothpaste, shampoo, bath soap) or when there are a few dominant brands (e.g., camera film).
• Levels of loyalty are lower among products that are purchased infrequently (e.g., athletic shoes, batteries, tires, TV sets).

• Number of brands available
• Frequency of purchase
• Perceived differences among brands
• Level of involvement
• Level of perceived risk
• Brand benefits

Characteristics of Brand Loyal Consumers

• They tend to be self-confident
• They feel capable of making good brand choices
• They tend to perceive quite high levels of risk involved in product purchase
• They tend to be outlet loyal

Negative Post-Purchase Behavior

• Passive: lack of repeat purchase or recommendations to other consumers
• Active: potentially damaging to the reputation and future sales of the product
• Types of negative post-purchase behavior:
• Negative word-of-mouth
• Rumor
• Complaint (no action, private action, public action)

Complaint Response by Marketers

• Build realistic expectations
• Demonstrate or explain product use
• Stand behind the product
•  Encourage customer feedback
• Periodically make contact with customers

Product Disposition

• It is the process of reselling, recycling, trashing, repairing, trading, and the like associated with the physical product, packaging, and its promotional materials when no longer perceived as useful by the consumer or marketer
• Role of the consumer
• Role of the marketer
• Demarketing
• Green marketing

Product Disposition as Donations

• You donate items like clothing, accessories, books, toys and other household goods to Goodwill. Your donation is tax deductible by law.
• Donated items are processed for resale by Goodwill employees, many of whom are gaining on-the-job training through our Retail Skills Training Program.
• Your donation is resold in one of Goodwill's area retail stores. A bargain savvy shopper is now reaping the rewards of owning your quality goods.
• Revenue from the sale of your donations fund Goodwill's employment training programs that prepare individuals with disabilities and disadvantages for competitive employment.

The impact of recycling on product purchases

• Environmentally sensitive consumers are known to purchase products that are available in recyclable containers.
• The NRC-Nike Reuse-a-Shoe Partnership
• The program accepts all brands of athletic shoes, as long as they don’t contain any metal (e.g., eyelets or cleats). Once you reach the 5,000 pair minimum, Nike will arrange for shipping and will recycle the shoes into Nike Grind. This unique ground-up material is then used to resurface athletic fields, courts, tracks and playgrounds. Since the program began in 1993, some 15 million pairs of shoes have been recycled.