IKEA 1. Consumer’s behaviour is influenced by a number of personal, situational and stable external factors. Among the external factors one can distinguish between social, cultural and geographical ones. Social factors are attributed to a consumer’s family, social role and status, as well as different groups a consumer belongs to or hopes to join. Such aspects as country specific and ethnic traditions, religions, climate conditions belong to cultural and geographical factors. IKEA being one of the biggest furniture retailers in the world recognises the necessity to adapt its products' offerings with regard to consumers’ social and cultural differences. The company’s employees observe that consumers’ purchasing behavioural patterns tend to vary across countries. IKEA came up with fresh ideas which made its newly designed products to match the local tastes. To honour the “Year of the Rooster” in China – the company produced and sold 250.000 themed plastic placemats. Specially for the U.S. market IKEA has adjusted a few of its items. To reflect on the particular observation of the American buyers’ preferences, the cloth's drawers where made substantially deeper, as people there tend to fold cloth and put it away in the drawers unlike the Europeans hanging everything up. It has also been noted that vases were purchased a lot to be used as glasses, for the later were seen too small. IKEA simply offered bigger glasses. Visiting Hispanic households in California encouraged the firm to widen its seating and restaurant areas, as well as to play with colour palette of the decorations. 2. The buying decision process consists of five stages, specifically: 1) problem recognition (need recognition), 2) information search, 3) evaluation of alte... ... middle of paper ... ...pt to foster such heuristics in peoples’ minds by developing and supporting its own brand called “Chosen by You”. “Price=quality” shortcut stands for a well-known assumption that the more expensive the good is the higher quality would come with it. ASDA as well as the majority of retailers is trying to beat such association stating that the firm is not undermining the quality despite the lowest prices set. “Country-of-origin” decision aid advocates the idea of consumers inferring the product's quality from the “made in” label on it. For instance, countries like Germany or the Netherlands bear a positive image in the majority of the customers’ decisions. There are other countries, however, which do not enjoy the customers’ appreciation. Bibliography Kotler, P., & Keller, K. (2012). A Framework for Marketing Management (Fifth ed.). Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.
Armstrong, Gary, and Philip Kotler. Marketing: an introduction. 11th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2013. Print.
Price is how much to sell your products for. This is based on your cost and product value to potential customers. I believe that price is important and you will definitely attract customers with the lure of cheap prices, especially at Christmas time. How many people just recently woke up at 4 a.m. just to get in line for several hours so they could get a great deal and save a few dollars? I believe that it works to motivate certain customers, but there are still consumers out there who are not interested getting stampeded during a price reduction sale.
Kotler, P., Keller, K.L. (2012). Marketing Management (14th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Every home, apartment, and dorm room will often require some piece of furniture. One important way to remain competitive in this market is to be competitive with price without sacrificing quality; thereby, maintaining a cost leadership over any competitors. In fact, to become a cost leader would give a firm such as Ikea a competitive cost advantage and add customer value in an efficient and sustainable way over its competitors (Heizer and Render, 2014).
Each category will be analyzed using IKEA student info website, IKEA group corporate website, resources from University of Phoenix library and articles from magazines. The key questions that the author will address are
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IKEA can consider franchising as it will help expand their customer base and become more ethical during their operations. Franchising would help expand their operations into other countries without the risk of debt or the cost of equity (Entrepreneur, 2004). IKEA is franchised by Inter IKEA Systems B.V. of the Netherlands (Inter IKEA Systems B.V, 2012e). Franchising has helped IKEA meet cross-cultural issues and create suitable policies and procedures (Schneider and Barsoux, 2003). Whilst IKEA have been expanding their operations through franchising, it has been found that the different product designs have influenced cross-cultural differences. Based on this, culture has an impact on the product design, so IKEA have ensured the products and design are appropriate for their diverse customer base.
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Kotler, P. & Keller, K.L., (2009), A Framework for Marketing Management. 4th edition, Pearson Prentice Hall: USA
Kotler, J., & Keller, K. (2012). A framework for marketing management. Essex: Pearson Education Ltd.
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There can be many things that might factor into the want to buy something. There are many steps that a customer takes before actually buying a product.
Originally, the postwar boom helped drive the furniture industry’s change. World War II drained the life out of many households, and newer innovative changes were sought by many. The tradition of handing down furniture from generation to generation was quickly disappearing in most households. IKEA helped shape the postwar household by offering new furniture styles at a very reasonable price. With low costs came a new innovative style and a comfortable atmosphere to shop in.