Harvard Marketing

Project Capstone

This assessment utilises concepts learned in Module 3 (Chapter 4 Needs, motivation, personality and self-concept), Module 4 (Chapter 5 Consumer perceptions), Modules 7 and 8 (Chapters 913 Family, social class, culture, sub-culture, cross-culture and consumer behaviour) and Module 9 (Chapters 14 and 15 Consumer decision-making).

Create a consumer diary by chronicling three purchases from three different retailers (e.g. a take-away coffee from a local caf, a downloaded video from iTunes, etc.)

For each purchase, note your perception of the retailer and of the service and/or product offered (use theory on perception to frame your discussion).
What influenced your decision-making process? (Consider your needs, motivation, and personality coupled with the theoretical model on decision-making.)
Did family, social pressure, culture, stimuli (advertising, etc.), customer service, word-of-mouth and country-of-origin play a role into your decision-making?
Analyse your customer experience and for each purchase, make recommendations that you believe would increase consumer quality perceptions, satisfaction, trust, and consumer retention. (Hint: consumer loyalty.) Base your recommendations on your analysis and on the consumer behaviour literature.
Base all your answers on consumer behaviour theoretical frameworks and ensure that your recommendations are ethical.

All references  (minimum 9) must be from credible sources such as books, industry related journals, magazines, company documents and recent academic articles.