Consumer Behavior Assignment On Understanding The Market Psychology

Question

Task: Based on the analysis you conducted in Assessment 1, individually, you are required to create a 10 question survey via Survey Monkey (a free online instrument) to collect data from 15 respondents and to provide six-page analysis of the gathered data.
Assessment Description.
In this individual assignment, you will be given an opportunity to critically analyse and understand the driving forces of perception, attitudes, motivation, group and individual differences, culture, family and lifestyle covered in weeks 3 to 8 that influence consumer behaviour and consequently consumers’ purchasing decisions. Please note that not all of these topics may apply to your chosen product or service.

Answer

Purpose of the survey
This consumer behavior assignment has been conducted to see the effect the consumer behavior on the consumption of chocolate gift range by Haigh. In the survey, there are a number of factors that has been considered such as motivation, attitudes, perception, individual and group difference, culture and family which affects the consumption of chocolates of the consumers ((Ramya and Mohamed Ali, 2016). Prosser (2018) reported that Haigh Chocolates are opening factories in the hope to expand in Australia and gift pack options was one of the important initiative to expand the brand. In this paper on consumer behavior assignment the psychology that is involved while purchasing gift range from the brand Haigh chocolates has been studied.

Development of the survey instruments
There are 10 questions that have been asked which have an impact on the consumption pattern for chocolates gift range by Haigh.

Questions	Relevance
Do you eat chocolate?	The question helps in understanding the perception held by the customer.
I prefer the chocolate brand Haigh over other chocolate brand that are available in the market	Perception held about Haigh chocolate
I have a greater preference for the gift kits over purchasing the individual chocolates	Perception about chocolate gift kits
Are you likely to make consumption of chocolates more frequently?	Attitude of the consumer towards chocolate
What motivate you to purchase chocolates?	Motivation of the customers
What demotivates you to purchase chocolates?	Demotivation aspects of the consumers.
Does your preference for the chocolate affected by other?	Individual and group differences in explained through this question.
Eating chocolates does not have an impact on my religious sentiment	Question helps understand the eating chocolates whether it is part of culture
I ensure that there is chocolate in the house so that it can be used as dessert after each meal	Eating habit of the customer can be analyzed with this statement
I like sharing and consuming chocolates with my family and friends	Family’s consumption of chocolates can be evaluated through this statement.

Process of administration
The researcher has performed a quantitative survey through the online medium. The survey was done using the survey monkey software. There were 10 question designed with selective options for each questions (Stankevich, 2017.). The survey link generated by the software was sent to 15 respondents. The software allowed in providing a graphical and tabular representation of the consumer behavior assignment results. I have used the survey monkey as this helps in purpose of market research and performs a competitive analysis of the customer feedback.

Data analysis
The findings can be analyzed through different themes and they are as follows:

Perception
The perception of the customer towards the chocolate can be found through Question 1, Question 2 and Question 3. From Question 1, it can be found that 46.67% of them said that they eat chocolate and 53.33% said that they did not eat chocolate. The respondents on asking whether they preferred Haigh chocolate over the other chocolate it was found that 26.67% of them have strongly agreed, 40% of them have agreed, 13.33% were neutral, 20% of them disagreed and none strongly disagreed. Chocolate gift sets are also found to be quite in trend and Haigh’s chocolate gift packs are a new addition to the chocolate collection. The respondents were asked whether they preferred the gift pack chocolates or the individual chocolates. From the responses it was found that 40% of them strongly agreed, 40% agreed, 6.67% of them were neutral, 6.67% had disagreed and 6.67% has strongly disagreed.

Attitude
To understand the attitude of the customers toward the chocolate consumption, the respondents were asked whether they are frequent consumers of chocolates. From the responses it has been found that 66.67% stated ‘Yes’ and the remaining 33.33% of them said ‘no.

Motivation
Motivation is considered to be an important factor that governs the purchases of the consumers. Even the respondents were asked regarding the motivation and demotivation factors behind purchase of chocolates. From the result it was found that 46.67% of them had a satisfying sweet tooth, 40% of them said they purchased the chocolates for the gifting purpose and 13.33% of them said they purchase because of influence by others. The demotivating factors that has come up are the cost and the bitter taste. 80% of them said that cost is a very important aspect, while the remaining 20% of them said that it was the bitter taste of chocolates.

Individual differences
The individual differences has been examined through Question 7. The respondents were asked whether their preference for chocolate is affected by others. It was found that 60% of them said no and 40% of the respondents stated yes.

Culture
Culture plays a very important role in affecting the consumer behavior assignment towards their choice of preference for the product. The respondents were asked whether their choice of chocolate has effect on their religious sentiments then it was found that 6.67% of them strongly agreed, 26.67% agreed, 53.33% of them were neutral, 6.67% had disagreed and 6.67% has strongly disagreed. Even the respondents were asked whether they preferred chocolate as dessert after meals. From the result it was found that 6.67% of them strongly agreed, 46.67% agreed, 33.33% of them were neutral, 6.67% had disagreed and 6.67% has strongly disagreed.

Family and Lifestyle
Family also has a very significant influence on the consumption or purchasing pattern of a product. The respondents were asked whether they preferred sharing the chocolates with friends and family then it was found that 50% of them strongly agreed, 21.43% agreed, 28.57% of them were neutral.

Key Findings
TechSci Research (2018) has showed that the chocolate consumption in Australia is likely to increase in the future. The market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 1.6% (Statista, 2019). From the consumer behavior assignment results it has been found that there was a large share of the respondents who had their preference for chocolates. Out of 15, it was found that 7 respondents eat chocolate. Around 10 respondents out of 15 respondents had preference for Haigh chocolates. This shows that Haigh chocolate brand is a preferred choice of a number of respondents. 80% i.e. 12 out of 15 respondents were in favor of chocolate gift packs. From the perception of the respondents it is clear that gift pack were preferred as well as Haigh chocolate brand (Willman-Iivarinen, 2017).

As per motivation aspect, it has been found that there was a large share purchasing chocolate for personal and gifting purpose. However, cost is a very demotivating factor that affects the purchase of the customers (80% respondents).

The preference of the other didn’t affected around 60% of the respondents and that is a very important aspect.

Eating chocolates was not affected by the religious sentiments by 5 respondents. However, it was interesting to note that 53% of them were neutral in their views. Around 46.67% were in favor of eating chocolates as a dessert option. The overall consumer behavior assignment result has found that there were a large number of respondents who were in favor of purchasing chocolate gift packs as this allowed them to gift to friends as well as catered to personal consumption. The initiative by Haigh chocolate to market the chocolate gift pack is considered to be a profitable initiative as their brand is preferred by number of customers and gift pack option was much preferred as this helped in enjoying chocolates with family or after each meals.

Reference
Prosser, C. 2018. Haigh's Chocolates opens new factory, hopes to expand around Australia Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-22/haighs-chocolate-bucking-the-trend/9576738.

Ramya, N. and Mohamed Ali, S.A., 2016. Factors affecting consumer buying behavior. International journal of applied research, 2(10), pp.76-80.

Willman-Iivarinen, H. 2017. The future of consumer decision making. European Journal of Futures Research, 5(1), 14.

Stankevich, A., 2017. Explaining the consumer decision-making process: Critical Literature review. Journal of international business research and marketing, 2(6), pp.7-14.

Statista, 2019. Australia. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/outlook/40100100/107/chocolate-confectionery/australia

TechSci Research, 2018. Australia Chocolate Market By Product Type. Retrieved from https://www.techsciresearch.com/report/australia-chocolate-market/1711.html

Appendix
Question 1

consumer behavior assignment