Is Consumer Behavior Diverging rather than Converging?
Is consumer behavior diverging rather than converging?
Many would say that because of globalization, the income, media and technology would suggest that consumer’s needs, taste, lifestyles and wants have become homogeneous, giving special emphasis on technology and internet. But what people do with their possessions does not converge. Some believe that global companies will achieve success by concentrating on what everybody wants rather than worrying about the details of what everyone things they might like. It’s like everybody, everywhere wants all the same thing they have heard about, seen or experienced via the new technologies. And to think this way is wrong since it would mean that the entire world was a single entity and that firms would only sell the same things in the same way everywhere.
Actually there is no empirical evidence that the consumer’s behavior is converging. The analysis implies that countries converge with respect to only relatively recent media such as television as compared to the divergence being seen with old media such as radio and newspaper. And that by this, internet might follow a similar pattern in the future as the old media, but it’s a recent phenomenon to talk about it. With these new technologies some say that it’s expected to prefer standard, high quality and low price products rather than customized high-priced ones. This idea was argued by Harvard’s Ted Levitt in his famous article titled “The Globalization of Markets”. This assumption is based on that consumer behavior is rational but this is unrealistic and consumers aren’t rational at all and they don’t purchase decisions that maximize profits.
As for example, convergence at macro levels like GNP per capita or the number of telephones per 1000 people do not necessarily imply convergence of consumer choice. And the cultural difference is being ignored. It’s the socio-demographic and psychological factors, the culture that tend to be a more useful
Many would say that because of globalization, the income, media and technology would suggest that consumer’s needs, taste, lifestyles and wants have become homogeneous, giving special emphasis on technology and internet. But what people do with their possessions does not converge. Some believe that global companies will achieve success by concentrating on what everybody wants rather than worrying about the details of what everyone things they might like. It’s like everybody, everywhere wants all the same thing they have heard about, seen or experienced via the new technologies. And to think this way is wrong since it would mean that the entire world was a single entity and that firms would only sell the same things in the same way everywhere.
Actually there is no empirical evidence that the consumer’s behavior is converging. The analysis implies that countries converge with respect to only relatively recent media such as television as compared to the divergence being seen with old media such as radio and newspaper. And that by this, internet might follow a similar pattern in the future as the old media, but it’s a recent phenomenon to talk about it. With these new technologies some say that it’s expected to prefer standard, high quality and low price products rather than customized high-priced ones. This idea was argued by Harvard’s Ted Levitt in his famous article titled “The Globalization of Markets”. This assumption is based on that consumer behavior is rational but this is unrealistic and consumers aren’t rational at all and they don’t purchase decisions that maximize profits.
As for example, convergence at macro levels like GNP per capita or the number of telephones per 1000 people do not necessarily imply convergence of consumer choice. And the cultural difference is being ignored. It’s the socio-demographic and psychological factors, the culture that tend to be a more useful
References: Consumer Behavior and Culture: consequences for global marketing and advertising/ editor , Marieke de Mooij. – 2nd ed. http://geert-hofstede.com/latvia.html, 22-11-2013 http://hbr.org/1983/05/the-globalization-of-markets, 24-11-2013, 15h45