Consumer behaviour and the marketing mix

Consumer behaviour provides a range of concepts to help fashion marketers think about their customers, and marketing research provides the techniques to measure those concepts. Consumer behaviour is also closely integrated with all other aspects of fashion marketing, but most notably with the selection of target markets and the development of marketing mixes.

The study of consumer behaviour not only provides a framework for identifying consumer needs and target markets, but it also enables the anticipation of consumer responses to marketing action. When studying the consumer the interest lies not only in describing what is the case, but also in predicting future behaviour.

The marketing mix is the combination of elements that a fashion marketer offers to a target market. It comprises decisions made about products, prices, promotion and distribution that are assembled in a coherent manner to represent  the company offering to the consumer.

Products are bought because they meet needs. These needs may be mainly physiological such as the requirement for warmth or may include social needs such as the desire to be thought sexually attractive. A psychological need, for example, may relate to vanity and selfimage and be manifest in a desire to perceive oneself as smaller or larger than reality. Styling skill can create garments that emphasize or reduce the aspect size as wished, but a limited amount of "psychological sizing" also can play a part.

The promotion of fashion items requires an understanding of consumers media habits so that the correct media can be chosen. Understanding consumer behaviour enables the selection of appropriate promotional messages.

Price for many people is a major indicator of quality. Style and design are sometimes diffi cult to judge, especially for the untrained. Therefore some consumers take surrogate indicators of quality and in particular price. An understanding of the perceptual process and how consumers learn about prices and value is helpful in constructing a pricing policy.

The choice of an appropriate distribution channel and designing elements within that channel should be based on an understanding of the fashion consumer. Knowing when, where and how consumers wish to buy are fairly obvious applications. Understanding and matching selfimages and store images and creating particular store atmospheres to encourage certain moods need research and ideas from consumer behaviour.