We kicked off this year covering the 5 steps to consumer decisions making, Consumer personality traits, and the importance of understanding both consumer personalities and behavior. This week we will round off this conversation with discussing consumer behavior and the ways in which the marketers, advertisers, and brands use information about us to steer our fashion decisions in their favor.
Consumer behavior can be defined as behaviors that are displayed in searching, chasing, using, evaluating, and disposing of products and services that they expect will satisfy their needs. These factors are also relevant to the personal consumer behaviors when meeting our wardrobe needs which we will focus on in this post.
In order to fully evaluate your consumer behaviors marketers work to answer critical questions which professionals call consumer research. We can call them consumer behavior checkin questions for our purposes.
Emotions drive our purchases more than we know. Consumer research helps marketing professionals and invested parties create ads that speak to our emotions and personal values which can lead to brand loyalty. They rely heavily on our personal connections to guide our spending habits. From family and friend recommendations, to the latest trends from "trusted" celebrity endorsers, We are constantly being taken for an emotional adventure in an effort to encourage brand loyalty and consistent spending.
Marketing in this age has become a social activity more than ever as social media continues to be adopted into our everyday lives. But are we really adapting or just adjusting to the market supply being forced on us? Think for a moment about how Gen Z is bringing back style and ways of the past. Thrifting is on the rise, making your own clothes is "cool" again, and we are enlisting a conservative mindset about textiles as the U.S war production board regulations did in the 1940's. We are finally fully exploring multiuse garments and ways to maximize product use but, the fashion industry is right with us green washing their policy pages and websites to look like they are doing the work for change. Retailers are vowing to commit to using recycled materials and reduce production waste while they aren't willing to slow the products going out to the market. So, what is really being done to achieve sustainability? That is something consumers need to take the lead on.
Doing a consumer behavior check in at least quarterly will help you stay in the decision making seat and support you in avoiding unnecessary emotional purchases. Have you checked on your consumer behavior in the last 3 months? What did you discover? Comment to join the conversation.
Come back to learn more about the difference between mindful, conscious, and compulsive consumption and to explore how our consumption style shows up in our wardrobe options and uses.
Sources:
"Consumer behavior" by Leon G. Schiffman and Leslie Lazar Kanuk