Promotional Tools and Situational Factors

Question: Discuss about the Promotional Tools and Situational Factors. Answer: Introduction: The objective of this report is to find the consumer approaches and influence of the situational factors on buying behaviors. Situational factors are time, mood and physical surroundings that actually convert the interest of the buyer into selling. Several types of research have been conducted to understand the method through which surroundings effect the buying trend. Researchers have identified situational factors very useful to get the idea about the variable that can control the purchasing outcomes. Two types of buying behavior have been discussed here, an impulse buying and another one is high involvement buying. The report has given a detailed account on the comparative discussion on how this two buying approach get influenced by the situational factors. The impact of Situational factors: As mentioned by, Solomon (2014), situational factors are the temporary factors that actually influence the buying approach of a buyer when a product is being offered to them. Both the impulse behavior and the high involvement behavior are effected by the situational factors. There are different components of the situational factors that are greatly influential for consumer behavior and the buying trend of a product. All the dimensions have been discussed below in the context of the both buying approach. Physical surroundings: Physical factors include different components like layout, interior of the store, display of the products, color, texture and design of the products, the ambience of the store etc. As mentioned by, Jung Chang, Yan and Eckman (2014), if the customers are not attracted to the products there are no question of buying the products. Hence, physical surroundings are extremely crucial for both the impulse buying and high involvement buying. Impulse buying is involved unplanned buying and the decision of buying takes place just the moment before buying. In this case, physical surroundings are influential, if the store is well decorated, the product is well displayed and the color and designing are attracting and interesting the buyer will not think twice before buying the product (Badgaiyan Verma, 2015). Therefore, it can be said that physical surrounding is highly influential for this kind of buying approach. For the high involvement buying the fact is that, if the buyers have decided to buy a product and get disappointed after turning into the store due to its lack interesting layout, display as well as design and quality of the product it will definitely affect the decision of the buyers that he or she has already taken (Solomon, Russell-Bennett Previte, 2012). High involvement buying involves time, patience and analysis of the product before a buyer by that product; that is why consumers tend to imagine about the product and expect certain criteria regarding they have been decided to buy (Ashraf, Rizwan Khan, 2014). If the physical surroundings failed to meet the criteria the buying behavior can be harmed resulting in the loss. Social situation: Social surroundings involve the friends, families and the reference group that influences the buying behavior of the consumers. For instance, it can be said that, in an impulse buying, if the friends are having the product of the same criteria or encourage buying of that particular product, customers can be influenced easily. Moreover, if the customers can relate their social practice with a particular product it will also catch their eye (Mohan, Sivakumaran Sharma, 2013). Another interesting factor in this context is that if the buyer finds that the product is being sold by one of his known people it will also influence the buying as it has been shown that people trust on the words when they are dealing with someone whom they have known previously. It becomes more trustworthy for a buyer when he takes it from someone who has bought or used the same products. For the high involvement buying, social factors influence the buying behavior by giving options and opportunity to compare and analyze the product. For example, it can be said that, a buyer is thinking about buying any product and the buyers relative and friends are giving positive information and review of that product buyer will definitely get attract to that particular product; whereas, for negative review the interest for buying product can get hampered. Other than that, when buyers find that a product is reflecting and respecting cultural values they involve time to buy such products; moreover, words of mouth can also be effective when it comes to high involvement buying. Time: time is a major issue for while evaluating the buying behavior of a consumer. It extremely depends on the customers whether he or she is going to spend more time or less time for buying the products. On the other end, there are particular times that influence the buying. Like during holidays or occasions, people generally tends to buy more products than normal period of time (Gu, Park Konana, 2012). Moreover, few people wait for that particular time of the year when the companies give the discount on products. All these measures are highly influential for the impulse buying; because, people reacts instantly to products that have attracted them (Muruganantham Bhakat, 2013). They do not spend much time to analyze before buying. However, for the buyer who shows high involvement prior to buying invest more time before taking the decision. They will take the decision only when they are satisfied with the quality, design and variations of the product. From the other end of the opinion, time is a crucial factor for the consumer behavior because the social practices have been changed largely. Consumers want to spend minimum time for the shopping due to the lack of timing. Nowadays people do not want to put extra efforts for buying; they always want their service ready to avail whether it is impulsive buying or the high involvement one. The main demand of the customer in present days is to buy all the product in one stop (Schiffman et al. 2013). Moreover, in many countries where customers are time starving want the privilege of doing other major activities like paying utility bills, taxes, insurance premiums from the stores they visit. On addition, it also can be said that waiting for the products or any time-consuming procedures during buying effect the customer satisfaction. Mood: Mood definitely influences the shopping spree for the consumers. All those mentioned before, are undervalued if the buyer has no mood or intention or interest to buy anything. However, it is true that mood for shopping eventually depends on the factors like physical surroundings, time and social perspectives. It gets difficult if the buyers have not in a mood of buying products; moreover, if the buyer is in a bad mood it effects the interest of shopping. For impulsive buying, mood is the major factor that influences buying (Amos, Holmes Keneson, 2014). In this kind of shopping if consumers are in a good mood they will instantly react to the products; whereas, for the buying behavior that involves high involvement it has no intense impact, nevertheless, bad mood can definitely affect the interest for buying the products. If the customer is not satisfied with the service and products their mood will get affected and gradually it will take the shape of the disappointment (Parment , 2013). Moreover, if customers are not happy with the pricing of the product it will also affect the mood of buying for the customers. To avoid such circumstances service providers and different organizations often promotes discount offers and other additional privileges for the customers (Ashraf, Rizwan Khan, 2014). Moods of buying can involve different approaches; for few buyers, they enjoy it and find entertainment in it whereas, for few peoples, there are a number of people who are compulsive spenders (Wind, Thomas Sheth, 2014). That is why it is an extremely influential factor that actually controls the consumer behaviors. Moreover, the shopping mood also reflects the amount of money the buyers spend on shopping. For, example, during a market fall of US stock market, people started feeling poorer and due to such low feeling the shopping tendency were highly affected. Conclusion: Hence, it can be said that buying behavior of consumers gets highly influenced by the elements of the situational factors. Situational factors are particularly responsible for giving an assumption about the buying trend of the consumers. Situational factors like physical surroundings, social references, time and mood are the key factors that actually plays the role of instigator prior to the buying of a product. This report has elaborated all these aspects for both the impulsive buying and high involvement buying. As these two approaches are different the level of impact is also different as well. impulsive buying involves instant buying whereas, the buying behavior of the high involvement engage more time, patience and concern about the product. Here, each aspect has been compared to both the context. Therefore, revising this report, it can be said that it is a complete establishment of the approach, required to analyze the buying behavior of the customer and can be revised while doing research on this topic. Reference list: Amos, C., Holmes, G. R., Keneson, W. C. (2014). A meta-analysis of consumer impulse buying.Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services,21(2), 86-97. Ashraf, M. G., Rizwan, M., Khan, M. A. (2014). The promotional tools and situational factors impact on consumer buying behaviour and sales promotion.Journal of Public Administration and Governance,4(2), 179-201. Badgaiyan, A. J., Verma, A. (2015). Does urge to buy impulsively differ from impulsive buying behaviour? Assessing the impact of situational factors.Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services,22, 145-157. Gu, B., Park, J., Konana, P. (2012). Research note-the impact of external word-of-mouth sources on retailer sales of high-involvement products.Information Systems Research,23(1), 182-196. 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