Consumer behavior

Essay by aminbikerUniversity, Bachelor'sA, October 2014

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Marketing and consumer behavior

Philip Kotler defines marketing as defined as "a social and management process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others". This highlights the importance of knowing and studying consumer behavior through understanding what they need.

Chinese consumer habits

The car market especially the used car market has boomed in China over the past year. Although, used car sales in this market make up for 19.1% of total car sales whereas in the US, the used car market covers 72.4% of total car sales (Nylander, 2014). A significant difference between the used car market in China and the US is lack of transparency in the Chinese sellers and dealers. Buyers cannot trust the dealers and usually cars with accidents will be fixed and sold without mentioning the record. A new trend in the Chinese automobile market is that most customers are starting to care more about car functionalities and convenience.

The search engines in China prove this fact and show that 50% of customers' searches have been on SUV's or compact vehicles. Moreover, a change in Chinese purchasing habits has also been shown in their popular keywords search: "most popular car models", "new-energy cars", "top 10 traffic violations" which proves a relatively new approach from the Chinese consumers to the car market. It has become important for them to get online information about cars which increases the importance of digital marketing.

A car purchasing phenomena in China named "fan out" has been happening in the automobile market. This effect involves a high demand for cars in metropolitan cities, followed by the same pattern in municipalities and smaller cities that evolve into the same buying habits. A noticeable difference in China compared to US is lack...