Business success today means giving customers what they need. Unfortunately, executives are trying desperately to provide customers with what they want.
The customer is king!
They switch their allegiance if you do not give them what they need. However, the consumer’s buying process is often complex, and customers do not tell you outright what they need. They state their wants.
For you, a more worthwhile pursuit is figuring out what customers need and giving precisely that!
In this post, we expose factors that affect purchase decisions.
You will learn to give your customers what they need, not what they want. Once you understand customers’ shopping behavior, you will be in a position to create and deliver what they need.
Here are the factors affecting consumers’ purchase decisions.
The Functional Factor of Customer Needs
The functional factor is all about the consumer’s needs. The functionality is typically about logic, what makes sense, and the consumer’s best interest.
While the functional factor plays an essential role in the buying decisions, it is often a boring factor and does not affect the emotional appeal.
In that regard, the functional factor is often the most important of all other factors affecting consumers’ buying decisions.
As the dealer, you must set the customer up for success and not for failure. For instance, it is too easy to get the customer excited about a swimsuit that may not fit them appropriately.
By taking the time to uncover the needs with a thorough analysis, you build more rapport and are much more likely to earn customers’ trust in the process.
The Psychological Factor
Effective advertising appeals to the customers’ emotions, which is a crucial contributor to the psychological side of the sale.
In essence, the psychological factor is more about what the customer wants. Businesses often introduce the psychological elements of the sale early enough.
Therefore, if the customer sees a lovely swimsuit in an advertisement, they already like it, even if it is possibly out of their budget range.
A salesperson can show the customer the merits, and the customer will bypass the pricing aspect.
Besides advertisement, personal image and societal approval are other psychological factors affecting consumers’ purchase decisions.
Consumers often want the best they can and, more often than not, the best they cannot afford.
The Economic Factor
The economic factor is the foundation of consumers’ purchase decisions. People will not purchase what they cannot afford, no matter how badly they need or want to.
However, to consumers, affordability is a matter of perspective.
Therefore, most consumers tend to rely on creative budgeting to get the things they need. Businesses provide payment plans such as down payments, business loans, and even hire purchases.
Dealers must subscribe to the creative budgeting approach or risk dismissing every customer based on their inability to afford it.
Cultural Factors
Finally, cultural factors hugely influence consumers’ purchasing decisions. Each consumer lives in a complex social and cultural environment.
Cultural element has an impact on the kind of products or the services different customers tend to desire.
The cultural factors include the consumer’s race, religion, tradition, and moral values.
Conclusion
As illustrated here, the consumer purchasing process culminates in multiple things. All these factors play a critical role in making the final purchase decision. Therefore, when serving consumers, it is important to keep these factors in mind.
Understanding these elements and how they influence the purchase decision helps you deliver what customers need, not just what they want.
To serve your customers better, learn to listen to what they mean regardless of how they say it.
Knowing what customers need vs. want combines customer conversations, market, and industry insight. Dealers must also pay attention to feedback loops through insightful data about user actions.
SwingPoint Media for Help With Your Ideal Customer
SwingPointMedia is a marketing company that uses content marketing, such as written articles, videos and podcasts, to attract their customers’ ideal audiences. This approach has proven to attract higher-quality customers while simultaneously reducing the sales cycle by as much as 70%.
SwingPointMedia serves local businesses in Southern California and can be reached by calling 760-422-5176 or clicking here.