Cultural Factors Influence Smartphone Purchasing Behavior Analysis
Abstract:
We conducted the research in order to know about the drivers of Smartphone purchasing behavior and to know
about the psychology and behavior of consumers after purchasing Smartphone’s. We conducted the research in shopping malls of London, UK, however Smartphone industries as they are getting the higher advantages from the customers and there are various factors including societal factors that could drive the purchasing behaviours of the customers towards the Smartphone’s. We developed structured questionnaires for 100 people and Generation Y is our targeted sample. Thus, people are satisfied of using the Smartphone’s, the result conducted said that 100 people 66 of the people are satisfied with the brand they have and 34 of the people said that they want to change the brand because of the social influence.
Introduction:
This literature review about consumer behaviour analysis, influencing consumer’s purchasing behaviour and cultural factor, something about network environment safety factor, consumer behaviour after obtaining the product, psychology and behaviour of consumers after purchasing Smartphone’s. There is the rapidly growing demand of the Smartphone’s, around the world wide, as we conducted the research in London, UK. We come to know that most of the consumers are buying Smartphone’s because of the increasing innovation and customers motivations. However, the people are using mobile phone and the benefits are there to the Smartphone industries as they are getting the higher advantages from the customers, there are advanced computing capability and mobile phones have the big touch screens, there are high pixel cameras and customers could do, internet browsing. Several benefits are given to the customers because they can use the social media and get the information about entertainment purpose, reading news, navigation, health and fitness, games. Smartphone’s are attracting the people towards the digital world, where the tasks get easy for them; Smartphone’s industry is impacting on the behaviour of Smartphone buyers. There are so many of the brands of Smartphone’s, as the consumers are using Apple, Sony, Samsung, HTC, Windows and others. The brands awareness and the cultural factors are the reason to drive the customer’s Smartphone purchasing behaviour.
There are various factors that could drive the purchasing behaviours of the customers towards the Smartphone’s; societal factors are the other reasons that are motivating the customers in order to purchase the Smartphone’s that are in demands, as the consumers can be motivated by the families and friends or other trends that could force them to buy the brand, as 32% people from the 100% are using the Apple phones and 33% from the 100% people are using the Samsung phones. However, the marketers have analyzed the interests of the consumers and they are focused on to make the phones that could be able to satisfy the consumers need, brands are providing the satisfaction to the customers and based on the reason they are not willing to change the brands, as our findings said 100 people 66 of the people are satisfied with the brand they have and 34 of the people said that they want to transform or change the brand, this means that they also wants to buy the brand that is trendy or famous in the people.
The research is conducted in order to know about the social influence factors or the drivers that are motivating the on the consumers’ minds so that they could buy the Smartphone’s. Various studies have shown that there are various factors affecting consumer’s purchase, through our research we have also come to know about the factors that are dependency, compatibility, and convenience for both the male and female. Another aspect could be discussed as the social Influence, which is the great influence for one, as by looking at the others, as people prefer their own brand or the brand they are using there could be impact on the Consumer’s Purchase Decision (Lee, Chang, & You Lin, 2014).
Our research aims to identify that what factors drives Smartphone purchasing behaviour so there could be the reasons behind it, as the price, brand name and other social influences can motivate one, or feature and status symbol can result for one to use the brands name. Social Influence is the major impact on the mind of human being, there can be the various features which are defined as the product specifications (Lee S. Y., 2014). Consumer purchase intention can be explained as the own choice of consumer because there are the consumer purchase intention. There are other factors that are investigated in the study, as our study explore many reasons that are behind the consumer choices in order to use the Smartphone’s, however, many of the people are satisfied from the brand they are using it means that they have the Smartphone of the preferences and they are satisfied, there could be other psychological factors or cultural factors example, security that are influencing on the human mind so that there could be better usage of the Smartphone. Students are getting the information on the Smartphone’s; there are College students who are influenced by the psychological characteristics, as there can be the individual characteristic or there could be the relationship between college students that force them to have a Smartphone’s, students can use various applications on Smartphone’s in order to stay connected with each others.
We can see the customer’s satisfaction from the structured questionnaire that we used to know about the purchasing motivation, students can be positively influenced by the Smartphone’s as the paper aims to investigate the factors that are behind the decision of buying the Smartphone’s mobile phone devices, social and psychological factors are impacting on the brand and basic properties. Thus, the companies know that how the customers are influenced by the namely innovative services of the brand, people can use the multimedia and they can be attracted by the price and reliability. Moreover, the brands come to know that how people can be satisfied as the companies are giving various technological benefits in one device (Chang, Chen, Hsu, & Kuo, 2010). The investigators studied that price and the other related properties can also be the important factors to make the actual decision for the consumer, but in our structured questionnaire there was no favored attribute regarding to the high quality and price but the satisfaction level of the consumers can be known towards the brands, people are dominated the decision about using the Smartphone’s because of the social influences and convenience, there can be the positive attitude of the consumers towards product and customers can be influenced by quality, product image and the other purchase intention. Perceived quality could be seen as the major external influence as the perceived value of the products can be a great social factor because other people can be attracted (Lay-Yee, Kok-Siew, & Yin-Fa, 2013).
The Aim of the study:
The aim of the study is to do the analysis of the consumer behaviour that influencing consumer’s purchasing behaviour and cultural factor. However, what are the drivers of consumer behaviour that are influencing on buy the Smartphone’s, as psychology and behaviour of consumers after purchasing Smartphone’s.
Research Questions:
- Why the people buy Smartphone, it is their need it or wants and do they buy the expensive Smartphone’s?
- What characteristics or factors drive Smartphone purchasing behaviour in consumers to buy or purchase Smartphone’s, social, cultural and personal factors?
- Does the consumer use computers less because the customers use Smartphone’s now?
Literature Review:
Smartphones, similar to personal computer, have independent operating system and independent running space and users can freely install programs such as software, games and navigation provided by the third-party service providers. Besides, users can have access wireless network through mobile communication network on a smart phone. Smart phone develops from personal computer. With the rapid development of communication network and social media, 3G and 4G networks have emerged (Lee, 2014). In recent years, many scholars have conducted researches on the marketing strategy of Smartphones. However, many of them just focus on the consumers’ behaviour before purchasing and ignore the importance of studying consumer behavior after purchasing Smartphones.
Accroding to Koufaris (2002), consumer behavior is defined by the American Marketing Association as the dynamic interaction of perception, cognition, behavior and environmental factors and it is the basic of human behavior in a transaction. Thus, consumer behavior is closely related with products and service. Many researches on consumer behavior was on the impact of characteristics of goods and service and neglected the study of consumer behavior after purchasing (Hawkins et al., 2010). Watson et al (2013) mentioned that consumer behaviour is a complete process, while unlike acquisition or purchase, which are the part of this process (Watson et al., 2013). Thus, the study of consumer behavior should not only understand consumers’ choices before access to goods and services, but also pay attention to consumers’ evaluation and attitudes towards the products after purchasing (Lee, 2014). Only in this way, consumer behaviour can be fully understood, according to Lee (2014).
Consumers have the initiative of consumption. Smartphones have gradually evolved into a set of multiple properties in one digital product from the original simple communication tool. Meanwhile, Smartphones have more functions. The changes in the properties of Smartphones also have an impact on consumer’s purchasing behavior. Consumers no longer simply see Smartphones as a communication tool, but also a necessity to meet their needs in life or a symbol of their wealth status (Lee, 2014). Thus, most consumers become potential customers of smart phone manufacturers. Thirdly, consumption is rational. When selecting functional Smartphones produced by many brands, more and more consumers purchase products that are cost-effective with good service. Smartphone makers therefore should focus on the specific market target group when they sale phones because different target group has different purchasing behaviour.
Smartphones have become a very important communication tool in people’s daily lives (Lee, 2014). With the development of smart phone technology and increase in popularity rate, the trend of consumers’ purchasing behaviour has been changing to free style from rational high-tech style. Besides, consumers’ level of demand for products has changed from the material level in the past to the spiritual and cultural level, meaning that they with the products could deliver them more pleasure and a sense of superiority. Thus, consumers tend to buy Smartphones with user-friendly design.
If a product has some attributes that can releases consumers’ underlying emotions, it can appeal to consumers (Baumeister, 2002). Currently, Smartphones have added the design of emotional factor. For example, iPhone’s interface designers put the warning button with potential improper operation in the control list so as to reduce the probability of wrong operation, delivering a good operating environment for users. Customers therefore might have better experience when using iphone.
Post-purchase behavior is an important part of consumer behavior (Koufaris, 2002). Indeed, this emphasizes the consumers’ psychological activities. According to Ahuja et al (2003), this includes customers’ evaluation, satisfaction and repurchase after purchasing, also it includes other behavior based on the evaluation of the purchasing experience. The customer satisfaction after purchasing can be used to evaluate their loyalty to the brand, relating to corporate profits. Besides, satisfied consumers can accept a higher price, meaning an increase in product revenue for companies. Moreover, Sohail and Tanveer (2015) pointed that the cost of retaining loyal customers is lower than the cost of attracting new customers. However, according to Persaud & Azhar (2012), the consumer satisfaction for Smartphones survey in the first half of 2010 released by a well-known research film “J.D Power” showed that iPhone ranked first for four consecutive times. Nokia has outstanding performance in terms of its battery; however, its overall satisfaction, operating system, convenience, appearance, and performance cannot compete with iPhone. This result shows the impact of marketing strategies of the two companies on consumer satisfaction.
Although consumer behavior is the process of interaction of many factors, the proceeding of this process is built on basis of consumer demand. It can be said that demand is the most fundamental driving force of buying behavior and consumer demand is the basic starting point of marketing. Thus, mobile phones sellers should make a specific analysis of consumer demand to catch consumers’ purchasing behavior better in the mobile phone industry. It can promote the healthy and stable development of the mobile phone market (Persaud & Azhar, 2012). The network revolution has greatly changed people’s living habits, and the mainstream consumers of Smartphones have been extended from the youth population to all ages. It is obvious that people’s lives have been inseparable from Smartphones.
Methodology:
Introduction:
In this chapter, this project focuses on to describe the methods on the topic “What drives Smartphone purchasing behaviour”. The questionnaires were filled by the people in shopping centers in west field London, United Kingdom in order to know about the willingness of the customer towards the Smartphone post purchasing behaviour.
The Rationale of the Research Method:
Regarding focused on the Questionnaire, we have developed the series of questions, in order to take the information from individuals and the group of people, as we gathered the data by mail, telephone and by using the technique of face-to face interview. Questionnaires take the short period of time and it is considered as the fastest way to gather the data, however, our research aims to find out the post purchasing behaviour of the people and to get the opinions by asking people. Moreover, focus was of the primary and secondary data. We consider the Primary data and we did collection through self-administered questionnaire distribution, there was the physical distribution and the online distribution of the questionnaire on the social media. Thus, for the secondary research we have chosen the relevant researches. We used the convenient non-probability random, sampling model or method in order to get the information from the targeted group. Thus, opinion was taken from the 100 questionnaires that were distributed among the group of people.
Questionnaire Design:
Our questionnaire was consists of the two parts the first part include the personal information of the people who were filling the data and the second part consist of the five questions as there were the detailed information of the people, the questionnaire were design as having the blank to writ opinion in yes or no and the multiple-choice questions.
Sampling and Location:
There were 100 questionnaires, which we filled on date 1—10 April, 2017, the response rate we got was 100% as we have conducted the researches in two different malls of London UK.
Findings from the Primary and Secondary Research:
Introduction:
From the research we have found that Smartphone purchasing behaviour have influenced on the age factor and the income, as most of the people focus on buying the Smartphone from the company Apple especially if their income is good, Iphones are in trend now so Smartphone post purchasing behaviour among the different brands seems to be effective. However, the questionnaire shows that brand people buy the Smartphone’s from the supermarket and the online store. We focused on the majority of young people, as the Generation Y is our targeted sample so the Smartphone purchasing behaviour seems to be major concern for the people in every age.
Fig 1: From the 100 questionnaires there were 53 female who filled the questionnaires and 47 male.
Fig 2: The targeted group was from young generation or Y generation between the ages of 20-30 years. 70 people between the age 20-30 years and only 30 years above.
Fig 3: Do you have Smartphone? From 100 people, 98 said that they have it and only 2 people said that they do not have it.
Fig 4: Have you ever used a different brand of smart phone？60 people from the 100 said that they used different brands and 40 people said that they use the same brand.
Fig 5: Which brand of Smartphone does you prefer？32 people from the people said that they use Apple, 14 people said they use Sony, 33 people said they use Samsung, 11 people said they use HTC, 2 people said they use Windows and 8 people said they use others.
Fig 6: Why do you like this brand？100 of the 16 people said because of its Size, 13 people said because of its Function, 19 said because of the Appearance, 22 said because it is Handy and convenient, 10 said because of the System and 20 people said there are other reasons.
Fig 7: If there are new products of your phone brand, would you buy them? Thus, there were 66 of the 100 people who said yes and 34 people said no in response to this question.
Discussion and Findings:
We have find out the male and female are equally influenced by the Smartphone post purchasing behaviour, as we have found in questionnaire that both the sex male and female have the Smartphone preferences and they are drive by the brand name because brand awareness is there. Most of the people are having the smart phones of Apple and Samsung as according to the survey, from the 100 questionnaires there were 53 female who filled the questionnaires and 47 male. Thus, the targeted group was from young generation or Y generation between the ages of 20-30 years, therefore, we have 70 people between the age 20-30 years and only 30 years above that. Thus, the research the most influencing factors was brand name, it is because the brands have created good reputation in the market and people or young generation has badly influenced as preferred to buy Smartphone’s with the good brand names.
We have Smartphone? From 100 people, 98 said that they have it and only 2 people said that they do not have it. Next question was, have you ever used a different brand of smart phone？60 people from the 100 said that they used different brands and 40 people said that they use the same brand. The third question was which brand of Smartphone does you prefer？32 people from the people said that they use Apple, 14 people said they use Sony, 33 people said they use Samsung, 11 people said they use HTC, 2 people said they use Windows and 8 people said they use others. Fourth question was Why do you like this brand？100 of the 16 people said because of its Size, 13 people said because of its Function, 19 said because of the Appearance, 22 said because it is Handy and convenient, 10 said because of the System and 20 people said there are other reasons. Fifth and last question was if there are new products of your phone brand, would you buy them? Thus, there were 66 of the 100 people who said yes and 34 people said no in response to this question.
Regarding focused on the consumer behaviour, through the questionnaires the decision making processes of the consumers are known as they making a purchase according to what they like and what is going around, it is the buyer behaviour that can influence on someone on the time of purchase. However, while analyzing it could be said that marketers have recognized the consumers and they know that how to motivate the customers towards the brand, most of the people are using Apple and Samsung phones, which means that it is the buying decision of the people and the marketers have influenced on them, thus, the customer could be influenced by the external stimuli that drives them towards the Smartphone purchasing behaviour. Companies are doing the advertisement or mass media on the social network this is the reason that people prefer to buy the product from which they get the satisfaction. Customers evaluate the alternatives brands and they set choice for the product that provides them with satisfaction.
As according to the survey, most of the people are having the smart phones of Apple and Samsung and they do not want to change the brand they are using, from the 100 people 66 of the people are satisfied with the brand they have and 34 of the people said that they want to change the brand, it means that they also wants to buy the brand that is famous in the people, or the people which do better advisement as the people or customer interactions are there towards the brands that are familiar in the people they have around. The brands awareness can be the reason to drive the customer’s Smartphone purchasing behaviour.
Conclusion:
Focus on concluding the factors the research focus on the drivers of Smartphone purchasing behavior and to know about the psychology and behaviour of consumers after purchasing Smartphone’s. Through the research we find out that there is rapid development of communication network and consumer behavior need to be focused after purchasing Smartphone’s so that the potential customers of smart phone manufacturers or satisfaction level could be known, the design of emotional factors was studied, in order to do the evaluation of the purchasing experience so that companies or manufacturers can retain loyal customers, the cost of the Smartphone’s can attracting new customers.
The question, what drives Smartphone purchasing behaviour and the post purchase behavior, for this we conducted the research in shopping centers in west field London the research aims to find out the post purchasing behaviour of the people and to get the opinions by asking people, for the research we focus on the primary and secondary data, we have developed and did self-administered questionnaire distribution from people. 100 questionnaires were distributed among the group of people, which contains the detailed information of the people and options yes or no and the multiple-choice questions. However Smartphone industries as they are getting the higher advantages from the customers and there are various factors including societal factors that could drive the purchasing behaviors of the customers towards the Smartphone.
From the analysis of post Smartphone purchasing behaviour people are seems to be satisfied, as 60 people from the 100 said that they used different brands and 40 people said that they use the same brand. Through the analysis people are using different brands example, Maximum people from the targeted group are using the Apple and Samsung Smartphone’s and they are satisfied from the brand they are using. Maximum people said they are using Smartphone’s because it is handy and convenient and many people said there are other reasons of using Smartphone’s as there could be the cultural and other social issues. On the question regarding satisfaction, the people were asked the if there are new products of your phone or the brand you are using then what will you do, 66% in response said they will buy the product, because the post Smartphone purchasing behavior have satisfied them.
Recommendations:
It is clear from the research that the post potential customers behaviour of smart phone consumer have the great level of satisfaction level which is may be regarding to the social, psychological, religious or societal factors. It is being recommended to the Smartphone industry that there is the need to satisfy the consumer by making more effective design of the Smartphone’s, there can be the better technological aspects.
Limitation and Scope for the Future Research:
There can be limitations in our research as the respondents may have comment based on biasness; they may not revealed the exact experiences they get from the brand or the level of satisfaction they get. Second there was the limited collection period and we have only few of the respondents, however, almost every person is using the Smartphone, across the world but we have selected very few people to answer so it could be also another limitation. We have not recognized the exact potential customer’s behaviour of smart phone consumer and level of satisfaction that the people get from the brands.
Also Study: Smartphone Addiction Among Students
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