Consumer purchase behaviour for wine

General Approach to the Concept of

Consumer Behaviour

The field of consumer behaviour has been explored extensively, with a view to understanding how and why consumers make purchase decisions. Common research themes have included studies that have explored what factors influence the purchase making decision process and how marketers can utilize this evidence within the marketing mix.

The role of product features such as brand and pricing are very important and of particular interest within the wine market. In most markets there are usually a small number of highly dominant brands, which capture a large percentage of market share and therefore a high degree of repeat purchase. One of the key factors that differentiate the wine market from many others is the lack of large and dominant brands, where a wine or range of wine is positioned, distributed, communicated, and packaged under a single name with a recognizable identity. Consumers can consider and indeed utilize brand indicators when purchasing wine in many different ways. These vary from the simple brand defined by colour (e.g. red or white), to more complex indicators such as country or region of origin, style, grape variety and producing method. Other factors that characterize the wine market include price differentiation within a single product category and product differentiation within category in terms of quality, style and labelling.

The role of packaging within the wine category is also significant. Product information and packaging design may be of particular importance to consumers when making purchase decisions.

The study of consumers helps firms and organizations improve their marketing strategies by understanding issues such as how:

- The psychology of how consumers think, feel, reason, and select between different alternatives (e.g., brands, products);

- The psychology of how the consumer is influenced by his or her environment (e.g., culture, family, signs, media);

- The behaviour of consumers while shopping or making other marketing decisions;

- Limitations in consumer knowledge or information processing abilities influence decisions and marketing outcome;

- How consumer motivation and decision strategies differ between products that differ in their level of importance or interest that they entail for the consumer; and

- How marketers can adapt and improve their marketing campaigns and marketing strategies to more effectively reach the consumer.

Understanding these issues helps us adapt our strategies by taking the consumer into consideration. For example, by understanding that a number of different messages compete for our potential customers attention, we learn that to be effective, advertisements must usually be repeated extensively. We also learn that consumers will sometimes be persuaded more by logical arguments, but at other times will be persuaded more by emotional or symbolic appeals. By understanding the consumer, we will be able to make a more informed decision as to which strategy to employ.

Regarding the Romanian market, the study was conducted on a sample of 937 people aged 18-65 and is representative of the urban environment. The data was collected in October 2003. As for the Hungarian market, the research had two phases. In the first phase we conducted qualitative research with six focus groups. These sessions focused on the decision making process of wine purchases. The quantitative research was carried out in November 2002. Quota sampling method had been selected.