After visiting the website of IKEA, to facilitate the consumer designing making process I have found a different option for household products. First, while having a quick look I found that the diverse image is shown on the website that in fact attracts the attention of customers. For engaging clients, visual marketing is regarded as the most important factor. After having some research on the website, I went quite deep into the dining section.
Besides all that, from the website which I have gone through found that IKEA shows some promotion of the products and services. For example, there was the sale of 15% to 50% on most of the dining item, and to know more detail on that product the only thing that customer need to do was just to click on the link that they have mentioned.
Without an advertisement selling the product is too difficult. Most of the customers end up making a purchase of any goods by the promotion of the advertisement that they get from different places. With the facility of buying and selling services on website, it has the option to gather all the positive and negative feedback from the customers, which shows how IKEA has maintained knowing about customer experience and their opinion. When problems given by customers are solved and listened to them, it helps the company to keep their loyalty.
IKEA has also the services of online chat and phone call where the customer can clear about their query and also obtain information about the products. Similarly, as it is mostly famous for the appliances of household materials it provides rent and van, kitchen maintenance services to the consumer.
Similarly, when consumers come to buy things, they go through a certain stage which includes:
- Recognition of problems
- The first stage involves buyers realizing what they need for them to satisfy themselves.
- For example, one partner moves from Sydney to Adelaide, for that that have managed to bring all required materials from their previous place but dining table they just left as there was not enough space to keep on vehicle. So, they must buy a new dining set after coming to Adelaide. This was their problem recognition and need after coming towards Adelaide (Pride and Ferrell, 2015)
- Information research
- The second step involves the research of information about the dining table. In which they look after it quality, price, previous experience and its level of involvement (Pride and Ferrell, 2015).
- Similarly, when they go through research, they look for varieties of products of dining tables from different companies. And do more research on that product, its contents, price, other feedback, and its durability.
- For instance, if they want to purchase dining sets on IKEA first, they will compare the price of IKEA with other company’s dining sets what they researched before. Along with that they will try to gather feedback from the previous users, know their experience and its availability before buying it.
- Evaluation of alternatives
- The third step involves finding alternative products.
- For example, when going through the research buyer may like a dining set of IKEA but with that, they might find it expensive as well. So as a alternative they may go for more research with desire on other company in search of lower price dining sets.
- Purchase
- Quite simply, the fourth steps involve purchase decision.
- After having a lot of research and gathering required information from old IKEA products users they decide to buy dining sets from IKEA.
- Post-purchase
- Finally, the fifth stage covers after purchase of products.
- In this stage, the buyer assesses the product’s performance and matches the level of satisfaction. If they find the product exceeds their expectations, then they are satisfied with their purchase. If expectation matches their requirement, it would be neutral feeling while it’s below the expectation, dissatisfy their buying the product.
References
- IKEA | Affordable Australian Home Furniture – IKEA. (2019). Retrieved 10 October 2019, from https://www.ikea.com/au/en/
- Sale | IKEA Australia – IKEA. (2019). Retrieved 10 October 2019, from https://www.ikea.com/ms/en_AU/campaigns/sale.html
- Ling, P., D’Alessandro, S. and Winzar, H., (2015). Consumer Behaviour in Action.Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com.ezproxy.laureate.net.au/lib/think/detail.action?docID=1986000
Reply:
Thank you for your valuable feedback after visiting the IKEA website and sharing your lessons. In fact, promotion is very important for the success of a business. It helps allow visitors to know prominent features of the product. It is understandable in this case, and you have nicely reflected on this practice on IKEA’s website. I agree with you that advertising and promotion are very helpful for the success of a business. It may be understandable if one knows that consumer behavior. You have narrated and explained these stages in consumer behavior, and they help the phases a customer goes through when he goes to purchase any commodity. Companies usually invest time and money to understand consumer behavior and they should be concerned because consumer behavior is really complex to forecast. You have mentioned stages of consumer behavior and they may be helpful for companies.
