faty
Get Complete Project Material File(s) Now! »
Henry Ford, who introduced the world’s first affordable car in the early 1900s, the Model T, is credited with saying that “consumers can have a car in any colour they want, as long as it is black” (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2010:70). Who determines the final selection of what consumers buy has, however, changed over time as consumers have forced the evolution of supply chains into demand chains (Blackwell et al., 2006:14). A supply chain is defined simply as all of the organisations, from wholesalers and manufacturers to retailers and facilitating organisations such as advertising agencies and banking institutions, which are involved in taking a product from manufacture to market. In the past, these organisations together determined what consumers were able to buy. However, as market forces have continued to evolve, there has been a steady increase in the influence of consumers on the supply chain as illustrated in Figure 2.1 (Blackwell et al., 2006:14&17). Initially, the consumer had little influence on the supply chain. During the late 1500s to 1700s in Europe and between 1750 and 1850 in the United States, the focus and therefore the power within the supply chain lay with the wholesaler. It was these distributors that determined what was available for consumers to purchase (Blackwell et al., 2006:14).
Post-consumption evaluation
The sixth stage in the decision process encompasses a post-purchase assessment in which the consumer evaluates the outcome of the consumption process as well as a post-purchase learning in which the consumer stores the result of the assessment in their long-term memory (Parumasur and Roberts-Lombard, 2012:260). The interactions between the post-purchase processes are indicated in Figure 3.11. Whereas some purchases result in non-use, a consequence of the consumer either retaining the product or returning it to the retailer unused, most result in product usage (Hawkins et al., 2007:638). As the product is used, the consumer continuously evaluates its performance against their own expectations. This evaluation results in three possible outcomes (Parumasur & Roberts-Lombard, 2012:260; Schiffman & Kanuk, 2010:498; Schiffman et al., 2012:84): i. A neutral feeling – perceived performance matches the consumer’s expectations. ii. A feeling of satisfaction – perceived performance exceeds the consumer’s expectations. iii. A feeling of dissatisfaction – perceived performance is below the consumer’s expectations. Another important outcome of this evaluation is an attempt by the consumer to reduce post-purchase cognitive dissonance. As such, the consumer is constantly reassuring themselves that the choice of brand (alternative), especially if it was a difficult and relatively permanent decision, was indeed the correct one (Blackwell et al., 2006:84; Hawkins et al., 2007:638; Schiffman & Kanuk, 2010:498). The outcomes of the post-consumption process are critical, in that they are stored, as mentioned previously, in a consumer’s long-term memory to be referred to during future decision making (Blackwell et al., 2006:83-84).
1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.2 BACKGROUND
1.3 RESEARCH PROBLEM
1.4 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
1.5 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
1.6 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
1.7 CONTEXT OF THE STUDY
1.8 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
1.9 DELIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
1.10 DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS
1.11 PLAN OF THE STUDY
1.12 SUMMARY
2 CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR IN PERSPECTIVE
2.1 INTRODUCTION
2.2 DEFINING CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
2.3 THE EVOLUTION OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
2.4 MODELS OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
2.5 SUMMARY
3 CONSUMER DECISION-MAKING
3.1 INTRODUCTION
3.2 THE CONSUMER DECISION-MAKING PROCESS
3.3 CONSUMER DECISION-MAKING STYLES
3.4 SUMMARY
4 CONSUMER INVOLVEMENT
4.1 INTRODUCTION
4.2 DEFINING CONSUMER INVOLVEMENT
4.3 ANTECEDENT FACTORS INFLUENCING CONSUMER INVOLVEMENT
4.4 TYPES OF CONSUMER INVOLVEMENT
4.5 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF CONSUMER INVOLVEMENT
4.6 MEASURES OF CONSUMER INVOLVEMENT
4.7 SUMMARY
5 VARIABLES AFFECTING THE CONSUMER DECISION-MAKING PROCESS
5.1 INTRODUCTION
5.2 FACTORS AFFECTING THE CONSUMER DECISION-MAKING PROCESS
5.3 PERSONAL CULTURAL ORIENTATIONS
5.4 SUMMARY
6 RESEARCH PROBLEM, CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK, RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
6.1 INTRODUCTION
6.2 DEFINE THE RESEARCH PROBLEM (STEP 1)
6.3 FORMULATE THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK (STEP 2)
6.4 DETERMINE THE RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND RESEARCH HYPOTHESES (STEP 3)
6.5 SUMMARY
7 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
7.1 INTRODUCTION
7.2 RESEARCH PARADIGM AND APPROACH
7.3 RESEARCH DESIGN (STEP 4)
7.4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
7.5 SUMMARY
8 ANALYSIS OF DATA AND INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS
8.1 INTRODUCTION
8.2 ANALYSIS OF THE DESCRIPTIVE DATA
8.3 ASSESSMENT OF THE REFLECTIVE MEASUREMENT MODEL
8.4 ASSESSMENT OF THE STRUCTURAL MODEL
8.5 SUMMARY
9 SUMMARY OF RESEARCH FINDINGS, CONTRIBUTION, LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH
9.1 INTRODUCTION
9.2 SUMMARY OF RESEARCH FINDINGS
9.3 CONTRIBUTION
9.4 LIMITATIONS
9.5 FUTURE RESEARCH
9.6 SUMMARY
10 LIST OF REFERENCES
