Research in Marketing

Another basis for categorisation of buying behaviours is classifying them as planned buying behaviour and unplanned buying behaviour. According to Hansen (2006) and Ajzen (1991), planned behaviour is a product of complex situations in terms of buying a product. These complex situations are created when there is uncertainty dealing with the cost effectiveness, worth, the risk and other factors associated with the product. In such cases there is always a lot of planning which takes place before actually selecting and consuming a product by a consumer. All these factors are interwoven in one another. A lot of planning is attributed to the factor of risk which in turn is due to the uncertainty pertaining to transaction costs, benefits and such. Thus, when all these factors mix up together it eventually leads to planned behaviour from the consumer’s part (Lim, 2003). Unplanned buying behaviour, on the contrary, is when there is not much risk associated with buying any product or service. This is normally when there is clarity and transparency in the dealing between the buyer and the seller. When everything is clear for the consumer in an instant, there isn’t much of a need for a lot of planning and thus it is an easy decision to make as far as the buyer is concerned. When there is transparency, there is no risk and when there is no risk, there are no requirements for acute thinking and decision making. Thus, the whole process of buying becomes easier for the consumer and it’s called unplanned buying behaviour.

Financial Crisis and Consumer Behaviour

Bad decisions in the mortgage market in the US in latter quarter of the year 2007 lead to crisis which worst affected the western world, primarily the US and the UK. It lead to banks forced to refuse credits to consumers and the absence of  liquidity in the banks lead to huge losses for both banks and their consumers. Many companies went bankrupt when no financial houses came to their help leading to recession in many industries which were no initially much affected. The major issues the consumers had to face because of the recession are losing jobs, reduced incomes, no credit facilities from banking houses and higher services charges (Allen and Gale, 2007).

One of the worst hit markets was the UK retail market like retail outlets and supermarkets all around the UK. The recession lead to consumers being wary on what they spend their money on. Luxuries were moved out of the way for necessities. Consumers were forced to shop only essential commodities and avoiding unnecessary expenditure. According to Hawkins (2008), a right mix of quality and low prices are what the consumers have been aiming for since the advent of recession. The shopping interests of consumers have seen a clear shift from high price luxury stores to big discount giants especially in the supermarket industry. In the retailing industry, food retailing is seen to be going pretty smoothly through the crisis. With the help of very strong and well directed marketing techniques supermarkets that sell goods at low prices have been able to keep their heads above water even under such circumstances. However, the risks that are associated with these supermarkets are the fact that there might be a decline in quality of the goods provided in an effort to keep up with very low rates. This factor is already being seen in such stores where the prices are cheap but there is a certain amount of negligence that partners such low prices which ultimately will ruin the long term future prospects of such companies.