FMCG (Fast-moving consumer goods)
It is one of the leading and the fast growing industry across the globe that is also known as consumer packaged goods or products. In this, there are different durable and non-durable consumable products and services such as processed foods, toiletries, soft drinks, kitchen appliances, fruits and vegetables, etc that are included in FMCG and increase the demand of FMCG products in the market.
At the same time, FMCG market in Singapore is also continuously increasing. There are different firms in this market that provides the FMCG products and service for the customers in order to get the competitive advantages and to grab the market opportunities.
Singapore
It is the leading country in terms of tourism and the eco friendly environments. In Singapore, different cultures of people like Indian, Chinese, and Malaysian are lived. There is huge population of Chinese people in Singapore.
The GDP of this country is the $508.449 billion that is quite better as compared to other neighbour country of Singapore as well as the population of this country is the 5,607,300. So, due to increasing population ratio, the business growth in this country is also increasing.
Additionally, Coca-Cola Company is FMCG Company which deals in the consumable goods to the customers at reasonable price. In Singapore, there are different customers who follow different culture and different from their income level which directly affects the consumer buying behaviour.
This report highlights customer segment on the basis of their income, culture and GDP growth rate. This paper discusses the different sustainable practices and the motivational theories related to consumer buying behaviour.
There are different types of customers that are targeted by Coca-cola in Singapore. It is because in order to grab the market opportunities and to develop a good customer base, target the maximum customers is one of the single and major ways.
Due to this, Coca-cola also targets the different customers in Singapore on different basis. But at the same time, due to deal in the beverage products, Coca-cola target the customers on the basis of income, culture and the GDP (Bhatti, and Latif, 2014). It is because it assists the firm by increasing the profit of the firm and by minimising the risks that can affect the business of the firm as well.
In addition, on the basis of income, firm targets the all income group of people because there are different products that are provided by the firm for the customers in Singapore and the price of the products in Singapore are also different that also makes easy for the firm target the all income group of people easily (Ling, 2013).
At the same time, firm basically target the middle income group people are the major target group of Coca-cola. It is because there are different family packs offers at low prices that are provided by the firms for the customers that help the firm by increasing the customer base.
In addition to this, on the basis of culture, firm targets the all culture group of people like Malay, Indian, and Chinese. It is because the ratio of these culture groups of people is high in Singapore that is why firm target these culture groups of people (Hjort et al., 2013).
But at the same time, Chinese culture is the major priority of the firm that is targeted by the firm in high manner. The reason in this is that the Chinese people like to have the fast food in the dinner, breakfast, lunch, etc and along to this they like to have some beverage.
In the same concern, there are also different offers that are also provided by the different food related firms with Coca-cola that increase the customer base of the firm and to grab the market opportunities. In the similar way, firm also target the people on the basis of age and gender basis. In this, firm targets the youth people and male.
It is because there is high ratio of youth in Singapore and they prefer to go at mall and restaurant for having some fun. So, firm targets the youth by doing some joint venture with the food providing firms, malls, etc that makes easy for the firm to target the customers and to garb the more market opportunities (Mishra, and Prasad, 2014).
Below is graph that shows the GDP (gross domestic product) of Singapore. Additionally, from the below graph, it can be determined that the GDP growth rate of Singapore is fluctuating in year 2017 which is up to 1.1% approx.
(Source: Trading Economics, 2017)
Buying Behaviour of the customers in the context of Coca-cola
4ps (products, price, place and the promotion)
Product– in Singapore, people like to use the better quality of products. It is because the people of Singapore are very much conscious about their health and there are also different rules and regulation of the Singapore government regarding the products quality (Lai, 2017).
Due to this, Coca-cola provides the products for the customers with better quality that influence the buying behaviour of the people.
Price– The concern of the Singapore people regarding the price is very positive and they prefer the quality in the products as compared to the price of the products. As the GDP of the country is continuously increasing then the disposable income of the people is also high.
Because of this, people like to best quality products at reasonable price (Bashir et al., 2017). In addition, Coca-cola is also one of the major firms that also follow the price concern of the Singaporean people that influence the buying behaviour of the people.
Promotion- The social media is one of the bets and effective tools that is highly like by the Singapore people. It is because there is an increasing use of the social media apps and maximum people especially youth using the social media application in their daily life (Peck et al., 2013).
Because of this, the social media is one of the best ways that influence the buying behaviour of the people and Coca-cola also uses this way to target the customers in Singapore.
Place– Online shopping or place itself in the malls and supermarket are the major ways that influence the buying behaviour of the people. As Coca-cola is a beverage and there is not any particular store of Coca-cola so basically firm provide its products through online and by promoting itself in the big malls and supermarket (Zameer et al., 2014).
It makes easy the firms to target the customers and to garb the market opportunities.
Social culture
Culture is one of the major aspects that play a major role to influence the buying behaviour of the people. It is because in Singapore, there are different culture group people live that creates the issue for the firms to target the customers and influence their buying behaviour.
The all culture people prefer to use the same culture of the food and the beverage (Brown, and Capozza, 2016). So, in this concern, Coca-cola provides the different verities in the products for the different culture of people.
The Singapore culture is the combination of Asian and European cultures that is why the all people of this group prefer the beverage i.e. Coca-cola and the different verities in Coca-cola also makes easy the firm to target the customers and to influence their buying behaviour.
So, it can be determined that the different verities in the products and to be the popular brand, it is easy for the firms to target the customers and influence their buying behaviour (Dawes, and Larson, 2011).
At the same time, on the basis of physiological factors, it is too complicated to influence the buying behaviour of the customers. In this, firm use the different effective media promotion tools to target the customers.
Additionally, Coca-cola provide the full guarantee for the customers about the quality of the products an always provides full safety for the production of the products (Solomon, 2014). It assists the firm to increase the customers’ base and the influence the buying behaviour of the customers in Singapore.
Sustainability practices followed by Coca-Cola Company
Coca-Cola Company is demonstrating a highly strong commitment towards the sustainable practices for which company is developing sustainability practices in order to develop their business globally. The company Coca-Cola is focusing on targeting the developing countries like India, Nigeria where such practices and corporate social responsibility are followed by company in order to develop their economy condition.
While studying about sustainable practices, it is found that company Coca-Cola is highly committed towards the sustainability and for it, company took major step for practicing sustainability such as water stewardship, women’s economic empowerment, sustainable agriculture, human rights, giving back to communities and so on.
These all above stated sustainable practices are effectively followed by the company in order to achieve growth and development as well as enables to meet the social and environmental risks efficiently.
In today’s scenarios, it is observed that for every company sustainability decisions are becoming an essential element in terms of effective business decision making and capital and commercialization management processes, customer & supplier relationships (Llena and Talalweh, 2015).
In context to it, Coca-Cola Company culture also adopting sustainable practices in order to guide decision related to long-term investments which will add value to the business as well as helps in building the sustainability commitment with the help of business strategies and sustainability approach.
For building corporate sustainability, there is a need to make some sustainable practices which provides benefits to the Coca-Cola Company in terms of doing corporate social responsibility. The pros of sustainability provide benefit to the company by enhancing the company reputation and its image by overcoming their negative publicity and other negative impacts.
According to Karnani (2014), sustainability practices help the coca-cola company to attract and retain their employees by adopting effective employment strategies in which employees are provided with good working environment and opportunities which boost their morale and encourages them to give back to community by their service.
Giving back to community and developing sustainable practices in agriculture is increasing the company value as it attracts and engages stakeholders by convincing them that company is working for their benefits for which they are using effective sustainable practices.
Even though Coca-Cola Company contributes towards sustainability and corporate social responsibility, then also there are chances that company faces or overcomes difficulty in managing or adopting sustainable policies effectively for the organization as a whole.
But on the other hand, it is identified that sustainability practices somewhere mismanages the data which are necessary for data collection and presentation of meaningful and accurate data for achieving the actual result (Gürhan-Canli, et al., 2016).
In Coca-Cola, company is adopting different sustainable practices but it somewhere leads to breaking rules and unreachable targets and discounted feedback by only focusing on providing benefits to stakeholders and their advice.
These sustainable practices which are followed by the company were only for short term period as they are focusing on achieving the sustainable opportunity whenever they find it (Hollos, et.al., 2012). The cons of sustainability affects directly on the consistency and transparency and honesty of company information and their reputation.
In this, recycling process is an integral part of sustainability because recycling helps in reducing the negative impact on natural resources and environment. In other words, recycling helps in preserving the natural resources which are available to society and also support the companies in reducing the negative impact of natural resources processing effectively.
Epstein and Buhovac (2014) stated in his study that sustainability helps in meeting out the present needs by focusing on the opportunities of future as well as also on maintaining the healthy social environment.
According to Reilly and Hynan (2014), it is observed that recycling has the potential to support the long run sustainability by using recycling process as an important an effective strategy.
Recycling is most certainly used strategy by the companies in order to reduce the wastage and also to conserve the resources by enhancing the health and productivity of natural resources and ecosystems.
In addition, recycling also strengthens the economy condition by helping the society and companies to work for universal benefit. Recycling and sustainability are two important aspects for the company like Coca-Cola gets an opportunity to target the customers by preventing them and their health from diseases which harms them (Carless, et al., 2011).
In similar manner, company need to recycle the sustainability in order to contribute towards the economic growth and their wealth as well as it focus on developing the hum life and their well-beings (Tiwary, et al., 2014).
So, company decides to choose the recycling of sustainability as one major activity which pursuit towards the happiness and way of living better life by considering the human and economic benefits.
Effect of sustainability on buying behaviour
The consumer buying behavior is major concern for the companies who targets large number of consumer with its products and services. The company adopts sustainable practices for targeting its customer to aware them about the product and services as well as recycling process which they uses for maintaining sustainability in the economy.
For providing economic benefits, the companies using marketing strategies and sustainability approaches for mitigating the problem which is faced by the company in competitive environment and encourages consumer to buy that country’s products and services (Solomon, et al., 2012).
Moreover, sustainable practices somewhere provides support to the company in terms of development and growth by encouraging them towards green consumption and eco-friendly innovations which increases the consumption level as customers purchases those products which harm less to environment.
In support of it, Walker, et al., (2014) illustrated that sustainable practices creates positive impact on the consumer buying behaviour for which company is required to work for developing positive attitude among customers and also become responsible for effective sustainable environment.
Thus, a sustainability practice of the company creates huge influence over the consumer buying behavior to a large extent.
Motivation Theories to influence the consumer buying behaviour
There are different factors that motivate the customers and the buying behaviour of the customers also. In this, the culture is also one of the major factors that influence the buying behaviour of the employees. It is because every customer likes to use the products that match with their culture and provide them full satisfaction.
In the same concern of this, the culture theory posits that the culture of the person is a set of their beliefs and the values and these believes and the values of the customers influence their buying behaviour.
So, due to this, people like to buy the products according to their culture (Moshrefjavadi et al., 2012). In the concern of the Coca-cola, firm always try to follow the same concept of the culture theory and acceding to this, firm provides the products for the customers as per the different culture of people in Singapore.
In Singapore, there are different cultures of people such as Asian, European, etc so in order to target the all group of customers, Coca-cola follow the culture theory.
Along with this, social factors such as family, age, income, work, price, etc are also the major factors that also affect the buying behaviour of the customers. In regard to this, as per the internal theory of buying behaviour, price is one of the major aspects that also influence the buying behaviour of the customers. It is because every customer examines the price of the products and compares that price before taking the buying decisions.
Because of this, it can be determined that the price is one of the major motivational factors that influence the buying behaviour of the customers (Sheth, 2011). So, by concerning this aspect, in the favour of Coca-cola, it can be stated that Coca-cola has its major concern in the price of the products and it always keep low the price of products.
It helps the firm by influencing the buying behaviour of the customers and also helps the firm by increasing the customer base of the firm as well. In addition to this, personality and the family are also the major aspects that influence the buying behaviour of the customers.
The reason in this is that at the time of buying the products, some time customers think about their family and the personality that influence their purchasing behaviour.
So, in order to get the advantage of the behaviour of the customers, Coca-cola offers different family packs for the customers at low and affordable price that provide the competitive advantage for the firm and also increase the customer base of the firm as well (Gonçalves et al., 2016).
In like manner, as per the Generic Theory of Buying Behaviour, there are different steps that are followed by the customers and after following these all steps, the customer take the decision of purchasing the products.
In this, customers firstly identify their need and after this, they take the decision of purchasing the products. Because of this, for influencing the buying behaviour of the people regarding the beverage, Coca-cola provides the different verities of the products for the customers in order to complete the demand of the beverage in Singapore.
As well as, the stimulus-organism-response model of decision making model of consumer buying behaviour is also one of the major models that are used by Coca-cola for influencing the customer buying behaviour and to grab the more market opportunities.
It is because there are different ways and the techniques in terms of stimulus like providing some offers, discount, a great brand appeal etc that are used by Coca-cola in Singapore in order to get success in the market and to influence the buying behaviour of the customers. (Goldsmith, 2016)
The different stimulus used by firm make a positive view of the firm in the customers mind and influences the customers to buy the Coca-cola products.
Due to this, it can be stated that the stimulus-organism-response model of decision making model is one of the effective model of consumer buying behaviour that is used by Coca-cola to influence the buying behaviour of the customers.
At the same time, as per the value preposition theory of consumer buying behaviour, if firms add some extra value in the products then it motivates the employees and their buying behaviour also.
In the concern of the Coca-cola in Singapore, firm provides the different offers and the vale services for the customers like buy one get one free, some discount, etc that motivates the employees and influence their buying (Coca-Cola, 2017).
It provides the competitive advantages for the firm and influences the customers buying behaviours towards the Coca-cola. So, it can be finalised that there are different motivational theories that play a vital role in the success of the firm and to influence the buying behaviour of the customers.
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that there are different types of customers that are targeted by the customers. But at the same time, income, culture and the GDP are the major aspects that are majorly used by the firm to target the customers.
At the same time, it can also be concluded that firm use different sustainable practices such as the women empowerment and sustainable agriculture and packaging of the products, etc that are used by the firm to increase the customer buying behaviour.
Additionally, it can also be summarized that there are different motivational theories like internal theory of buying behaviour, generic Theory of buying behaviour, etc are the major motivational theories that assists the firm and influence the buying behaviour of the customers.
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