Market Segmentation And Factors In Light Evolving Consumer Eating Ocassions & Customer Needs
“The overall focus is to examine the emerging trends and the food purchase patterns of the consumers and how they are affecting the frequency of consumption of a certain variety of products. Highlighting the insights about the changes in the food behavior of the consumers. Keywords: Income, Customer Engagement, Customer Needs, Changing tastes, Health, Market.”
“Consumer is the real King”
It is rightly said,” Consumer is the real King”. He definitely owns the ‘crown’. Studying consumer behavior has become imperative as it’s the only way, in the long run, to evidently know about a consumer’s needs and probably a large factor to understand about a consumer’s satisfaction level as well. Consumer behavior depends on multiple factors like personal, psychological, social and cultural and the factors change as and when the consumer’s life changes which in turn has led to a large change in shifts of household consumption.
FACTORS AFFECTING EVOLVING CUSTOMER NEEDS
A tremendous increase in the number of retail revenues, a concentrated work-life, newer and larger variants of food products leading to change in taste preferences, increasing health considerations, increase in spending power of the customers are some of the factors affecting the evolving customer needs. ‘A customer who once bought a packet full of spicy potato chips has switched to the consumption of muted flavored corn nachos’.
CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT IS THE NEW MARKETING TECHNIQUE FOR GROWTH
Customer strategies that are strong enough have the capability to retain around 80% of their customers. Two-thirds of a company’s profit is dependent on the engagement strategy. The idea is to target the advocacy of the loyal customers and then make usage of their word of mouth. This increments the sale up to 5 times or maybe even more as compared to the paid marketing strategies. Amul, an Indian dairy cooperative brand, has always used traditional marketing methods through its advertisement mascot, Amul girl. It has been a hit among the customers because of its low-cost pricing strategy and the quality of the products. The trust it has built within its customers. It has now switched to a larger digital space because of the increase in the competitor base.
BEHAVIOUR OF EATING OUT AND CHANGE IN FOOD HABITS
The frequency of dining out, away from home has changed in past years. Consumers are willing to expend more at the cost of rising demands due to the increase in their income annually. This change is vastly taking place in the urban areas with an ample number of resources as compared to the rural areas which still aren’t exposed to this practice. Eating out has become a part of a family’s weekend rituals. As and when the countries went into an unlocked state during the Covid -19 pandemic, people started booking dinner tables in restaurants to satisfy their wants. The food stalls across the pedestrians have become much of a rage recently. They provide a satisfactory quantity of food and are simply easy on the pocket. The customers who are mostly on the run can easily grab the food and rush for work. They act as an alternative to the packaged foods available in the market. An increase in sales has led to a lot of people opening up their own food trucks and small cafes hence increasing the sales volume.
AVAILABILITY OF VARIETY OF PACKAGED FOODS IN SUPERMARKETS
The retail market entails a plethora of packaged goods, now made available to the consumers keeping in mind their willingness to buy the products. The availability of imported fruits, exotic varieties of vegetables and organic food items brought by the farmers/wholesalers to be sold in the market.
The market stood at a value of USD 849.5 million in 2020 and will reach a value of USD 2601 million by the end of 2026. Organic food items are available in most natural food stores. People look forward to buying organic products thinking it’s the healthiest option available.
Few only know that it promotes ecological balance and conserves biological diversity and hence is being promoted for regular consumption. The supermarkets/hypermarkets are subsidiaries of larger chains of companies spread all over the world. The evolution of food has led to the increase in the number of super-large markets and their numerous outlets hence affecting the small retailers selling a lesser variety of the products due to consumer preferences.
HEALTH & WELLNESS
Health is one of the most important factors in the light of the evolving consumer eating occasions and needs. This trend has been continuing for the past five years and is hence supposed to accelerate even more due to the consumers being educated about health and fitness and how important it has become since the pandemic has hit the world. Retailers are trying new techniques and taking initiatives to bring some new products to the market and diversify their margins. Companies are incorporating no carb, no sugar, GMO-free products and promoting probiotics, protein and plant-based products as well. Diet Coke sales have tremendously increased and have surpassed the sales figures of Coca-Cola due to the low amount of sugar concentration in the former.
CLOSER PROXIMITY TO SHOPPING AREAS
The closer the proximity to the supermarkets leads to the increase in the amount of the products that are not used avidly. The closer proximity to markets in the rural areas defines that the size of the market is smaller, there is less variety of the products, hence a consumer spends very little in comparison to the closer proximity of the supermarkets where a consumer spends more than he actually needs to. Also, the availability of not so perishable products has truly led to the reduced number of visits to the market but surely has cut down the factor of necessities in comparison to the wants.
CONCLUSION
The research entailed the information regarding the consumers eating occasions and needs. This can easily be derived that the trends are going to change rapidly due to the fast-paced economy. The changes will be reflected after the changes in the tastes and the preferences of the consumer. The evolution of the CPG market is certainly going to take place as and when new trends within the market would be introduced.
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