Consumer Behaviour of Leicester Market

Consumer behaviour of Leicester Market

Introduction:

Leicester Market is the largest covered market in Europe, and has been on site for 700 years. It locates in the city centre, contains outdoor market and indoor market with over 270 stalls. The outdoor market sells a wide variety of goods, such as vegetables, fruits, flowers, cloths, accessories, CDs, second hand books. The indoor market is a multi-level building, sells seafood, meats, footware, confectionery, cloths, and kitchenware.

The purpose of this essay is to analysis Leicester Market’s consumer behaviour, find out whether the Market is meeting customer needs. And finally I am going to make recommendations for the development of Leicester market. All the analysis and opinions will follow consumer behaviour theories.

Consumers as individuals:

1. Perception and Interpretation:

Consumer behaviour is the processes involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use or dispose of products, services, ideas or experiences to satisfy needs or desires (Solomon, Bamossy, Askegaard, 2002: 5). In addition, consumption plays an important role in social, psychological economic, political and cultural aspects of life. According to Solomon, Bamossy and Askegaard (2002), each of us is a self-contained receptor for information such as advertising messages, products, other people persuading, etc. from outside world, and reflections of ourselves. As a marketer, it is necessary to get the knowledge of consumer behaviour and consider how to use information to influence customers.

As human being, each of us has five main senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Information about products and other people’s stimuli, such as sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures will reflect to our sensation, then perception will selected, organized and interpreted these stimuli.

Vision:

Vision element is important in product promotion. Colours are rich in symbolic value and cultural meanings and consumers’ choices are largely limited by the colours available in the stores (Solomon, Bamossy, Askegaard, 2002: 38). In Leicester market, vegetable, fruit and flower stalls are always colourful, different colour vegetables or fruits showed in the stall to attract customers’ vision. One particular example is selling sweet peppers. In Leicester market, if a stall keeper sells sweet peppers, he or she certainly put different colour sweet peppers in a bowl to promote although the tastes are the same. No stall keeper will just sell single colour sweet peppers, because single colour is too boring. When selling clothing, colour is important. Warm colours attract young age group, while others (such as black) attract middle or old age group customers. In Leicester market, colours of cloths tend to cold colour (such as black, blue), even warm colour cloths (such as red) looked too dark not good quality. I think that’s one of the reasons why cloths stalls just have a few customers.

Smell:

Odours can stir the emotions or have a calming effect (Solomon, Bamossy, Askegaard, 2002: 40). In the retail market, smell influences consumers, no one like shopping in the smelly place. Especially for the seafood and meat stalls, raw meat or fish always smelled fishy. In Leicester indoor market food hall, odor of disinfector is very strong covers odor of raw meat and fish. Usually, odor of disinfector means clean and healthful in customers’ mind.

Sound:

Sound can affect people’s feelings and behaviours (Solomon, Bamossy, Askegaard, 2002: 41). Leicester outdoor market is a very noise market, on the other hand reflects it is a busy and competitive market with lots of customers. In Leicester market, sound has an importance effect that is attract customers’ attention. Each time when the stall keeper shouting “one pound a bowl……” always can attract several customers close with.

Touch:

Tactile cues can have symbolic meaning (Solomon, Bamossy, Askegaard, 2002: 42). When customers touch a product they can feel its textures. For example, before customers decide buying a cloth, they will touch the cloth feeling it soft or not.

Taste:

Taste receptors contribute to our experience of many products (Solomon, Bamossy, Askegaard, 2002: 43). For a delicatessen, good taste is the chief element to keep customers.

2. Motivation:

Motivation refers to the processes that cause people to behave as they do (Solomon, Bamossy, Askegaard, 2002: 93). In other words, in consumer