Consumption concept is people’s guiding ideology and attitude towards their disposable income and their orientation towards the pursuit of commodity value. It is the consumer’s attitude towards consumption objects, consumption behavior and consumption when carrying out or preparing to carry out consumption activities. Overall understanding, evaluation and value judgment of processes and consumption trends. The formation and transformation of consumption concepts are compatible with the development level of certain social productive forces and the development level of society and culture. Economic development and social progress have caused people to gradually abandon traditional consumption concepts such as self-sufficiency and asking for nothing from others, and replace them with new consumption concepts such as living within one's means, saving time, focusing on consumption benefits, and focusing on obtaining more spiritual satisfaction from consumption.
The first era: the era of rational consumption
In this era, on the one hand, due to low living standards, consumers only focus on the quality of the product itself, focusing on high quality, low price, and durability. durable. Therefore, the “goodness” and “badness” of a product have become the criteria for consumer purchasing. On the other hand, because the market has just started, production companies and production capacity are very limited, and consumer demand is huge, thus forming a seller's market in which supply exceeds demand. Consumer needs and desires are not taken seriously by producers. From the perspective of producers, as long as the price of their products can be accepted by the market, no matter how many products they produce, they can sell them without worrying about other additional requirements from consumers. Therefore, producers only strive to standardize products and improve efficiency from the perspective of the enterprise itself. Reducing costs through mass production to obtain profits has formed an "enterprise-centered" marketing concept that emphasizes production over the market. That is the "product-oriented stage".
The second era: the era of sensory consumption
In this era, due to the improvement and improvement of living standards, people's consumption concepts have undergone great changes, and consumers have begun to pay attention to the quality of similar products. differences and show great interest in innovative products. They would rather pay a higher price to buy higher quality and newer products. "Emphasis on brand, emphasis on style, emphasis on use" has become the first or main content of people's consumption concept. Therefore, "like" and "dislike" have become consumers' purchasing criteria. For producers, the good old days of producing more products and being able to sell them are gradually fading. After the 1930s, with the development of industrialization and mechanization, the labor productivity and output of producers increased rapidly, which flooded the market with a large number of products and caused oversupply. The positions of buyers and sellers have also changed significantly, and the market status has transformed from a seller's market to a buyer's market. What to buy, who to buy, and how much to buy are all decisions made by consumers within a larger range of choices. Therefore, the focus of the manufacturer's work is to use all means to stimulate consumers to buy their products, so that the company's ready-made products can be sold in large quantities as soon as possible, which becomes the "sales-oriented" stage. They spend great efforts to set up a special sales department, or they do not hesitate to let wholesalers and retailers share profits, and use various sales and promotion methods, such as advertising, discounts, gifts, door-to-door lobbying by salesmen, etc., to achieve their goal: to achieve the maximum sales volume. As for whether the product truly meets the needs of consumers, and whether consumers will regret or feel cheated after buying it, we do not give much consideration. From this era we can see that consumers’ needs have begun to diversify, consumption levels have become higher and higher, and producers’ vision has begun to shift from production to market. In the “sales-oriented” stage, although producers must not treat consumers Don’t look at me with admiration, treat me like a guest, but due to this urgent strong-selling mentality, the deeper needs of consumers are still in a state of indifference and neglect. In essence, it is still a kind of "enterprise-centered" marketing concept.
The third era: the era of perceptual consumption
With the progress of society and the changes of the times, people pay more and more attention to the enrichment of the soul, and consumption becomes more and more picky. The requirements for products are no longer quality, price, or brand. It’s about whether the product has the charm to activate the soul and whether it can bring spiritual satisfaction during the purchase and consumption process. Therefore, "satisfaction" and "dissatisfaction" have become the criteria for consumer purchasing.
At this time, the status of producers is becoming increasingly declining, and an unprecedentedly severe issue has been placed in front of producers, wholesalers and retailers: that is, market competition has become increasingly fierce, and consumption has become increasingly fierce. But they are becoming more and more picky. Sellers of products must not only make their products competitive, but more importantly, truly understand the needs of consumers, plan their own business activities according to customer needs, produce products and services that meet human needs, and stimulate and Satisfy customers' desires and regard customers as the starting point and center of the entire market activity. Everything starts from customers and everything is for customers. The market has transformed from the "sales-oriented" stage to the "demand-oriented" stage, forming a "consumer (customer)-centered" modern marketing concept.
It can be seen that the evolution of consumption concepts and marketing concepts are consistent with each other. Demand leads to production, and production promotes demand. The two are constantly interconnected and promote each other with the cascade changes in human needs. ***To improve and develop together.
The formation of consumption concepts
The formation of consumption concepts is not only the result of the long-term accumulation of national culture, but also a direct reflection of social reality. Among the many factors that affect individual consumption concepts, mainstream consumption Concepts and personal factors are the basic factors that influence the formation of consumption concepts.
First, the impact of mainstream consumption concepts on personal consumption concepts. Although Western consumerist culture has become the mainstream of popular culture since the 1950s, it has not had a broad direct impact on China so far. "Be prepared for danger in times of peace" and "live within one's means" are deeply ingrained in Chinese culture and economic thought. The long-term lack of material means of living during the planned economic system after the founding of the People's Republic of China, which advocated hard work and building the country through diligence and thrift, further strengthened people's conservative consumption concepts. This conservative mainstream consumption concept that has been deeply influenced by tradition will not be quickly changed because of the substantial improvement in people's living standards in just 20 years of reform and opening up.
Second, the impact of personal factors on consumption concepts. Through the modeling analysis of various factors that affect consumption concepts, it can be seen that the main factors that affect consumers’ personal consumption concepts are income, age, gender, place of origin, and education. Among them, the factor that has the greatest impact on consumption concepts is academic qualifications. Highly educated people are affected by People with a relatively high level of education are quick to accept new ideas and are more avant-garde in their consumption concepts. At the same time, these people have a relatively high income level due to their high level of education. Different places of origin also lead to differences in consumption concepts. The coefficient of income relative to the consumption concept index is small, which shows that the growth of income alone does not play a leading role in consumption concepts. In other words, in terms of the impact of culture and income on consumption concepts, See, income is not the main factor that affects consumption attitudes.
The impact of consumption concepts on consumption behavior
While consumption concepts are affected by other factors, they also profoundly affect people's consumption behavior. Of course, the stimulation of consumption behavior is the result of the combined effect of factors such as the product itself, brand image, consumers' main consumption motivations and consumption concepts, among which consumption concepts play a leading role. Specifically:
First, consumption concepts affect consumers’ brand preferences. The survey found that the more avant-garde the consumption concept, the more likely consumers are to like and choose international brands, while conservative consumers mostly choose domestic brands based on price and quality ratio.
Second, consumption concepts directly affect consumers’ evaluation of their consumption environment. Through the correlation analysis of the consumption concept index and the consumption environment evaluation index, it is shown that the more avant-garde the consumer's consumption concept is, the less attention they pay to the consumption environment and the lower the requirements for the consumption environment. It can be seen that promoting consumption and improving consumption concepts will inevitably make the consumption environment face more severe challenges, but the improvement of the environment can only be accomplished through the efforts of the government, enterprises and organizations from all walks of life.
Thirdly, consumption concepts affect people’s choice of consumption places and consumption methods. At present, the main place for Chinese citizens to consume is supermarkets, followed by large shopping malls. People choose supermarkets because they think the prices are appropriate, the quality is guaranteed, the items are abundant, and the services are considerate. At the same time, the logistics frequency is high, which also ensures the freshness of the goods and the continuous launch of new products. Large shopping malls have more choices because their services and quality are attractive; although free markets and wholesale markets have low prices, most of them are self-employed with high liquidity, so price distortion is serious and product quality cannot be guaranteed. The survey shows that 63.2% of residents choose price, 25.1% choose quality, and 25.2% choose shopping environment. The proportion of those with a college degree or above who choose quality and service as the first factor is significantly higher than the average, while the price is lower than the average. In terms of age groups, the first factor is still price, and quality assurance is the second factor. factors, shopping environment and convenience are concentrated among the elderly and young people.
Consumers with a frugal consumption concept rarely go shopping in specialty stores or boutiques, with a proportion of only 12.9%, but the proportion of consumers who choose to go to wholesale markets and free markets is the highest; More than half of consumers with advanced consumption concepts choose to go to specialty stores or boutiques and large shopping malls, reaching N53.7% and 55.2% respectively. The rates of going to wholesale markets and free markets are less than half of other types.
Fourth, consumption concepts also directly affect people’s future expectations and future consumption. The main consumption of Chinese consumers in the next few years will be concentrated in three aspects: housing (51.3%), children's education (49.4%), and tourism (41.3%). At the same time, there is some demand for cars, finance, further education, and home decoration. , whose ratios are 22.9%, 22.3%, 27.9% and 15.9% respectively. The more avant-garde the consumption concept, the lower the proportion of housing, children's schooling and furniture decoration in future consumption, and the higher the proportion of tourism, automobiles, financial investment and further education; frugal and people-based consumption The future consumption of those who consume in advance will mainly be housing and children's education; while those who consume in advance already account for the highest proportion of future consumption in travel, automobiles and financial investment.
Reasonable consumption should meet the following conditions
The first income is greater than consumption
The second increase in income is greater than the growth rate of consumption
< p>The third way to obtain income is extensive and not easy to be destroyed at onceThe accumulation of consumption can satisfy for a long time
How to consume reasonably
Generally speaking Say the first consumption is 50% (to meet food and clothing)
The second consumption is 20% (luxury, etc.)
The third consumption is 10% (unexpected)
And 20% of the relative income can be accumulated and used for consumption