Question

Read Eva’s story and answer the questions.

Eva, a single woman without children, is excited to know that her best friend, Anna, has given birth a baby boy recently. Anna invites Eva to attend the 100^th Day Birth Celebration Party for her baby boy, which is in this evening. Since Eva won’t have any time between work and the party in the evening, she must go today during her lunch break to buy a special baby gift for Anna. After searching for online information in the morning, Eva decides to purchase an electric baby food blender for Anna. She calls several friends for the latest information about alternative brands of the food blender immediately. Eva is not concerned about where she buys it as long as she can purchase a safe electric baby food blender from a physical retail store during the lunch break. Lastly, Eva goes shopping with her sister, a mother of two children, in her lunch hour. She asks her sister to come up with a final decision on the brand and model of the electric baby food blender for Anna. To save time for buying a baby gift in the lunch hour, Eva stops by a small sandwich shop conveniently located at the lobby of her office building. She never considers alternative food offerings by the shop but quickly orders her favourite Honey Ham sandwich for lunch.

The purchase situation will affect consumer purchase decision process. What are the FOURof the situational influences that are described in Eva’s purchase decision process for the baby gift? Which ONE of the situational influences is NOT described in Eva’s purchase decision process? Briefly explain each of the situational influences in one or two sentences.

Answer 1

Hello Buddy,

So to begin with, first I shall mention each of the situational influences and then relate them to the above case and answer the remaining questions

Following are the situational influences that affect the purchase decision process of any consumer -

The consumer's mood - With todays generation, mood plays an important role in the decision process of these young consumers, and they consitute a major share of all the consumers that exist and therfore company's go a long way in attracting them to purchase their purchase. Colors, emotions, etc or areas that quickly affect such consumers are some of the areas that company play with to attract these young moody consumers.

Reason for consumer's purchase - This is the primary influence for any purchase. It is the answer to the question 'Why would anyone purchase a particular product'. If the customer has no reason to purchase your product, it simply not going to sell no matter what.

Consumer's time situation - How much time does the consumer have with them to shop? or what time of the day or month or year is it? are certain examples of how the consumers time situation affects their purchasing decisions.

Consumers social situation - Social situation could mean the way a consumer purchases a product. Is it out of a social or moral obligation or just becuase of the consumers need. Social obligations also force a consumer to purchase something he otherwise normally would not purchase

Consumer's physical situation - Where exactly the consumer is located and what are the products that are easily available to the consumer for fulfilling his/her requirement.

Coming back to the given case,

The four situational influences affecting Eva's purchasing decision are her 1) Physical Situation, 2) Social Situation, 3) Time Situation and lastly 4) Reason for such purchase.

The only factor that has not affected Eva's purchasing decision is her mood to purchase because there was no question of mood at all. It was a social obligation that needed to be fulfiled.

I hope the above solution is what you were looking for. For any further queries or doubts in the solution, please feel free to drop a comment. Please do leave a positive feedback, Thank you :)