Consumer is a key concept of marketing. On the study of its characteristics and behavior, the positioning of goods and services is built, all marketing decisions are made. Therefore, the issue of classifying consumers in the market is one of the most important for the marketer. He must understand what groups the target audience of the promoted product is divided in order to competently build communications. Let's talk about the basic principles of classification of consumer groups, how they are characterized and how they are studied.
Consumer concept
The law on consumer protection provides a general definition of this concept. A consumer is a person who intends to purchase a product or service to satisfy his own needs or the needs of his household. By and large, all people can be consumers. As soon as a person has an intention to acquire something, he immediately becomes a consumer.
Since modern civilization is a consumer society, it is possible to equalize the concepts of man and consumer. Moreover, this person should have intentions to use the goods only to satisfy personal needs. As soon as he intends to buy something for profit, to organize a business, so he ceases to be a consumer. Therefore, all markets can be divided into two groups:
- B2C - business for the client, where we deal with the consumer;
- B2B is business to business, where a completely different motivation becomes the driving force of the buyer.
Traditionally, consumer classifications only include people who purchase goods or services for their own consumption.
Consumer attributes
All major consumer classifications come from the basic characteristics of a person. First of all, these include needs. This is the most important attribute of the consumer.
Need is a deficit of some resources necessary for a full human life. It is always associated with physical or psychological discomfort, which forces a person to make efforts to satisfy her, that is, to relieve a deficient, unpleasant state. The famous psychologist A. Maslow divided the needs into the following groups:
- Physiological. These are the needs that our body experiences in order to function safely: hunger, thirst, sleep.
- The need for security. A person seeks to avoid threats to life and health. The self-preservation instinct manifests itself in a variety of forms, from the prevention of physical risks to the desire to guarantee a certain standard of living (comfort zone).
- Social needs. A person cannot exist outside of society, so he needs to establish connections, to occupy a certain position in society.
- The need for respect. A person wants others to recognize his importance, therefore, strives for success.
- The need for self-realization. The highest need is connected with the fact that a person wants to express himself and his potential in some results of his activity.
Maslow's needs are arranged in the form of a pyramid, as a person begins to satisfy physiological needs first, and then begins to think about spiritual needs. This idea today does not cause unequivocal support among researchers, but in general terms it is true.
Based on the theory of needs, the consumer finds such an important attribute as motivation. To meet his needs, a person must perform some actions, he is looking for different opportunities, this can be called a motivation for activity.
Also, consumer attributes are factors that influence his behavior. These may be factors of social, cultural, group order. Also, the consumer has a set of psychological and socio-demographic characteristics. All these attributes become the basis for the construction of various classifications of consumer types.
Buyer Features
In civil law, there is the concept of a buyer. By it is meant one of the parties to the transaction. A buyer is a natural or legal person who buys any goods or services for money. Moreover, it does not matter whether the purchase is made to satisfy personal needs or the motive for its fulfillment is profit. To distinguish between concepts in terms of motivation to make a purchase, the concept of the final consumer is introduced. That is, it is a buyer who purchases goods for his needs. Classification of end consumers suggests that such a buyer has certain characteristics. He needs something, he has dominant needs, and he must also have the resources to satisfy them. Buyer's resources include money. He must be able to make a purchase, otherwise he will not be able to fulfill his function in the purchase process.
Consumer and buyer
In everyday consciousness, these two concepts are synonymous. However, in marketing they are distinguished. A consumer can become a buyer if he has the resources to make a purchase, there is motivation and opportunity. But the buyer may not be a consumer. So, if I buy goods to fill the shelves in my store, then I am not a consumer of these goods. Differentiation of these concepts is necessary in order to understand the difference in everyone’s motivation. The consumer purchases the product for himself, while consumer properties of the product are very important to him: quality, service, functionality. And the buyer can seek to benefit from the purchase and he is more interested in the price and terms of the purchase (delivery, discounts, forms of payment). Therefore, for example, the classification of energy consumers and buyers of the same resource will be very different. An uninterrupted supply of energy, its price, network maintenance, and warranty are important to the consumer. And for the buyer, all the associated characteristics are not important, he buys energy for resale to consumers, he is only concerned about the cost of the resource. The relationship of the buyer with the seller is regulated by the Civil Code, and the seller and the consumer are regulated by the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights.
Consumers of goods and consumers of services
Goods and services in marketing have a number of significant differences. The product is tangible, its quality is stable and it can be evaluated before you start using it, the appearance is constant. Goods can be stored, transferred, stored. And the service is intangible, its quality is unstable, it can only be assessed as a result of consumption. The service is not transferable and cannot be stored. In this regard, the consumer in assessing the quality of the goods does not arise difficulties. He evaluates the product by its consumer properties. But when assessing the quality of services, difficulties may arise. Since its quality is elusive, each consumer can apply their own subjective assessment parameters to it. It also complicates the construction of the classification of consumers of services. Therefore, marketers usually do not distinguish consumers of services in a separate group. They can only be divided into satisfied and dissatisfied with the quality of customer services.
Consumer research
In order to correctly plan marketing communications, it is necessary to have a good idea of the characteristics of the consumer. Their behavior is studied by a special science with the same name and through marketing research. To study, for example, electricity consumers and their classification, it is necessary to collect a number of socio-demographic data about them. Behavioral patterns are also explored for a service or product. Obviously, when buying milk or a car, the consumer is guided by different motives, and the decision-making process on the purchase proceeds in different ways. To build a classification of consumers, one can study their attitude to a product, brand or manufacturer, the degree of satisfaction with the quality of a service or product, the specifics of the process of making a purchasing decision and the influence of various factors on it, consumer motivation. Also, as part of the study, market segmentation is carried out and the most suitable segment for communication is selected.
Principles of conduct
Any classification of consumer categories should take into account the basic principles of consumer behavior. They are formulated as follows:
- The consumer is independent. No matter what they say that advertising forces a person to buy goods, but he always makes the decision to purchase on his own. Nobody commits any violence against him.
- The consumer is studyable. Motives of behavior, its features can and should be studied in order to better understand the needs and needs of people and help them satisfy them.
- Consumer behavior is affected. Marketing communications help a person make a choice, navigate the sea of goods. Studying the consumer allows you to find his need and help him to satisfy it through the purchase.
- Consumer behavior is socially legal. The consumer must not be deceived and sold to him defective goods. His rights are protected by law.
Types of consumer classifications
There are quite a few different ways to typify this category. The basis for the classification of consumers of services and goods may be behavioral strategies, socio-demographic and psychographic characteristics, attitude to new products, degree of satisfaction. According to the speed of adoption of new products, innovators, early followers, early majority, later majority and lagging or conservatives are distinguished. In terms of satisfaction, consumers of services are usually divided into those completely satisfied with the quality; rather satisfied than not; rather dissatisfied than satisfied; dissatisfied. There are also approaches related to the classification of consumers in different groups depending on the stage of the life cycle of the family and household. There is a classification of consumer rights. They are divided into general and special. They can also be divided into groups according to the degree of loyalty to brand loyalty. In this case, disloyal consumers, followers of other brands, neutral to all brands, loyal consumers of the brand are distinguished.
Traditional classification
Building a typology of potential buyers allows you to build a competent program for the promotion of goods and enterprises. The classification of consumers, taking into account the characteristics of behavioral strategies, is one of the oldest. However, its use for marketing planning is small. It distinguishes the following types of consumers:
- Customized. Those who purchase goods for personal use. These loners often have a small volume, since most of this group are young people under 30 years old, living separately from their parents. When choosing a product, they pay great attention to price, appearance, packaging, utility.
- Families or households. This is the most widespread type of consumer of food and industrial goods. Decisions on large purchases are made collectively; the woman is most often responsible for the purchase of products. Various household items, a man acquires equipment. Important consumer characteristics for them are price, brand awareness, functionality.
- Intermediaries. This group purchases goods for resale. First of all, they are interested in cost and discounts offered. They also prefer to buy goods for which steady demand has already been formed.
- Procurement. These consumers buy goods to support the activities of any enterprises. For example, for a food service outlet, it is necessary to purchase napkins, products, detergents, dishes, etc. They are interested in the optimal combination of price and quality in a product. These are professional buyers who are well aware of the consumer properties of the goods.
Socio-demographic classifications
The most important parameters of consumers are their socio-demographic characteristics. Based on them, you can plan the price and positioning of the product. For the classification of consumers, a number of signs are used:
- Floor. It is obvious to everyone that men and women make purchases in different ways and this must be taken into account when planning marketing communications.
- Age. Despite the apparent simplicity of this parameter, there is still no single classification of consumers by age. It is customary to distinguish children, adolescents, youth, mature, elderly and old people. However, setting a time frame is much controversial. Generational classification is also adjacent to age, which also does not have unambiguous indicators.
- Income. Another controversial position. The main problems here are also related to the establishment of boundaries. Where does the average income start? For different regions and estimates, this parameter will be different.
- Social class. Each marketer should also apply this indicator in accordance with his data, since there is no single principle for classifying people as middle or lower strata.
- Occupation. This is a relatively established category. It distinguishes those who work in the office, work in production, managers at various levels, the intelligentsia, the unemployed, the unemployed, and pensioners.
- Education. One of the most obvious signs of consumer classification. In this case, people with secondary, higher, incomplete education are distinguished.
Psychographic Classifications
In the 70-80s of the XX century, the main consumer classifications ceased to satisfy marketers. And the concept of a lifestyle appears. It is allocated on the basis of data on how a person spends his resources: money, time, information. On this basis, several typologies were created. The most common of them is VALS-2 (values and life styles). It distinguishes the following types of consumers:
- Innovators. They are always ready to try out a new product, they are distinguished by a lively mind, the ability to take responsibility.
- Thinkers. Mature people carefully weighing their actions always approach shopping rationally.
- Achieving results. Successful people with a successful career, a decent income.
- Experimenters. Those who in life love to learn everything from their own experience.
- Followers. This is a group of people who are confident in the firmness of the foundations.
- Aspiring. These consumers care about their status, are not confident in it, and strive for a group higher than their income status.
- The doers. Those who are accustomed to doing everything on their own, approach shopping with a practical measure.
- Survivors. This is a group of people with extremely small resources and therefore focuses only on the value of the goods.