Thinking back over this last term of Consumer Behavior there are a lot of very interesting concepts and topics that will be very helpful in making me a stronger candidate in the business world. I have learned a lot about market segmentation, consumer motivations and needs, and what research best to use to get the most reliable information about the consumers.

Key concepts and topics in this course have made me a stronger candidate to enter the business world.

First off there is there is market segmentation, market segmentation is part of Market segmentation is a way to differentiate the differences in consumers so to better get the message to the consumer by grouping them in four groups consumer-rooted facts, consumer-rooted cognitions, consumption-specific facts, and consumption specific cognitions. “Consumer-rooted features stemming from the consumer’s physical, social, and psychological characteristics versus consumption-specific usage-behaviors (i.e., facts) or attitudes and preferences toward specific products or buying situations (i.e., cognitions) (Kanuk & Schiffman, 2009, p.58).” Even more interesting is consumer motivations and needs, there are innate or primary needs that we are born with or there are acquired needs such as self-esteem and power which are acquired throughout a life time. To help find the consumers motivations it is also important to know the consumers goals, consumers have either generic goals to help with needs, or there is product specific goals that are want oriented goals “that is, the specifically branded products and services that consumers select for goal fulfillment (Kanuk & Schiffman, 2009, p.89).” I did not know that marketers will keep track of blogs and such to keep track of consumer consumption. This seems if you had the time it could be very cost-efficient way to track consumption habits. Other effective ways to track consumers behaviors is through marketing research such as exploratory research, descriptive, or casual research. Exploratory research helps find problem or hypothesis, descriptive helps find if there is a problem or even a potential to expand market, and lastly casual consists of experiments to see what could happen (Kanuk & Schiffman, 2009). All will be helpful in starting our family business in the future to better know the consumer and markets that we will be entering because I will be better equipped to segment the customers.

How this course has affected both my professional/personal development and explain how this course has encouraged you on your academic path.

This course has been very helpful I believe in my future professional, personal, and academic path because by better understanding consumer behavior I can make sure to be to know the consumers motives and goals as well as possible to better serve them. Using different motives of the consumer to help educate the consumer on products seems like a very effective way to communicate the product to the consumer. And as a consumer better educated in the what research needs to be done in a consumer decision process which will help better make choices. Academically it is helping me towards my educational goals of getting my degree. Before this course I feel I did not really understand market segmentation it used to seem like it was mostly done through demographics and not so in subcultures as much as it is. My long term academic goals are to get a master’s Degree in business administration with an emphasis in Marketing so better understanding what a consumer may purchase and why is helpful in making me a well-rounded marketer. “We define consumer behavior as the behavior that consumers display in searching for, purchasing, using, evaluating, and disposing of products and services that they expect will satisfy their needs. Consumer behavior focuses on how individual consumers and families or households make decisions to spend their available resources (time, money, effort) on consumption-related items (Kanuk & Schiffman, 2009, p.5).” That all helps me as a well-rounded business person, consumer, scholar.