Coffee Bean And Tea Leaf: Marketing

IntroductionQ1

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf have been established since 1963 founded by Herbert B. Hyman, due to his great dedication in finding and serving the best coffee and tea in the world it made him the founding father of gourmet coffee in California. Over 40 years later The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has grown into one of the largest privately-owned, family-run coffee and tea companies in the world. As stated in the question an investigation is carried out to find why people are willing to pay more for the coffee from Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf rather than just heading off to a common coffee stall which can be found just almost anywhere. As well as finding out the importance of consumer behavior which may affect their buying decisions. The investigation will be carried out using a qualitative method which means verbal statements or opinions obtained from customers of Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

Reasons of heading to Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf

Place

First and foremost the reason that why many customers head down to the Coffee Bean stall is due to the placement of the stalls whereby they are mostly placed in shopping malls and crowd centered locations. As gained from a customer of Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf her opinion would be “due to the fact that it’s convenient and easy for her and her family to shop while having a cup of to-go coffee, on the go while strolling in the mall and sipping hot coffee or any other beverages is just fun for them. And if they would want to stop by a good café to rest and chatter all day with friends and family it is convenient for them as well, since with the good ambience generated from the environment there and the great coffee smell it is nice and comfortable to be in Coffee Bean”. As the statement given by the customer, the placement of the Coffee Bean store is perceived as a convenience to the customer. Besides that, they enjoy coffee there as well because of the environment that the Coffee Bean provides is attractive and serene.

Pricing

Another reason why some customers would choose to purchase coffee from Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is because of the pricing itself. The price of the beverage in Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is affordable or to some it is rather cheap and nice. From asking a few customers who goes to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and purchase their coffee or other beverages, two perception has been found whereby the people who would go to purchase their coffee there is categorized into two group. A side whereby the customers to them the price is affordable as they would really much want to have high quality coffee made perfectly by using a barista’s skill and as well as the finest coffee bean from around the world, hence to them obtaining such great coffee with a decent price it is affordable to them since they consume coffee on a average basis. On the other hand the customers who describe the price of the coffee and other beverages as cheap are mostly people who are regulars and would head to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf almost every day, as well as foreigners who purchases coffee there. The reason that the coffee there is cheaper for some customers is because of their own perceived social status and high income, hence with that they would want to go to purchase higher or finer quality coffee at a well known place such as the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. But as a feedback from a foreign customer, he stated that “it is cheap and great coffee that they are paying for.” It is cheap because for $4.50 you can already purchase a large sized beverage there. By asking the customers at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf about the price they have already gave a clear reason why that they would pay more to purchase the coffee there rather than having it at a normal coffee shop.

Get Help With Your Essay

If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help!
Find out more about our Essay Writing Service

Promotion

Another factor that influences a customer in paying more for coffee at Coffee Bean rather than a local coffee shop is because of the variety of promotions which are available; varying from the promotional food and beverages or limited edition whole beans. The best examples are the seasonal drinks that are being offered on different festivals, E.g. Orange Cranberry Latte or Tea during the Chinese New Year season or the limited edition Sumatra Sidakaling coffee beans. Other than that their smart promotions such as topping up the coffee bean card with RM 50 and get a ready-to-drink coffee free while stock lasts or providing cakes-to-go or their own party packs which consist of different varieties to choose from. And lastly not to forget the promotions such as the coffee bean cardholders are entitled to a RM2 off or the online shopping at the coffee bean website which is on 24-7, is also something to enhance the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf service to because they are promoting in terms that Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has speedy and 24-7 services if anyone is to order any products.

Packaging

As for some customers the packaging of the products attracts them to purchase at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. No doubt that a product with a very attractive feature from its packaging will get the attention of customers and in this case products of Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has that attribute of having nicely packaged products such as the ready-to-go drinks in bottles, or even their merchandise line of whole coffee beans and their finest tea leafs offered. It is not a surprise that there are a lot of different people who would want to go for a product due to the beautiful and attractive package and worry about the content later, therefore the packaging can also be another reason for customers to pay the extras rather than doing it at a normal coffee shop.

Service Quality

A final fact that why a consumer would pay more for Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf rather than choosing to go to a normal coffee shop is due to the service itself, albeit the concurrent service or the post-purchase service it is far different from just a normal coffee shop. From the standardization of the food and beverages to the standard operating procedures (SOP) of the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf it is at a very big contrast when compared with a normal coffee shop. When it comes in terms of service Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf takes it seriously because great service is what every customer is expecting out of a well established and known brand. And for a customer who is paying a price for service charges, good service is highly expected. Therefore sometimes when a customer complaints or gives feedbacks to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf they are all ears in accepting it, compared to a normal coffee shop which would mostly want to close the sale with the customer quickly and then move on to the next customer, and in that case even customers who purchases there would not bother much about the services because the expectations towards the normal coffee shop is not high compared at Coffee Bean. As an example from experience of customers, even at most of the time a customer in the normal coffee shop would not want to make a fuss when the ordered items are made wrong or the employees there would not bother much to compensate or remake back an order. But for Coffee Bean when there is an error in any problems the employees there would make an effort in may be compensating back what is lost such as a refund or even remaking the order to suit back the customer’s need. Hence the difference in the two scenarios is that the expectancy of customers and the service quality of both coffee shops are different and that will also be the issue of why people would want to pay more to purchase coffee at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf rather than a normal coffee shop because the idea is that they pay more to get better and efficient service rather than to pay an average amount with no better benefits.

Due to the point in service quality, the comparison between Coffee Bean and a normal coffee shop shows that the customer appreciation value is better at Coffee Bean so it would be the best reason of why a customer would want to head down to Coffee Bean rather than a normal coffee shop.

Importance of Consumer Behavior

There is a significant reason towards the importance of finding out and understanding the consumer behavior. When a producer, marketer, or even consumers knows and understands the consumer behavior, there will be an understanding of what to control on in production or what to produce for a producer, then what to market, how to market, and to whom to market for the marketer, finally in consumers’ view which is what to buy, when to buy and etc, all of these reasons will eventually lead to one final conclusion which is the understanding of needs and wants of every consumer, whether in terms of a producer who produces the needs, or a marketer whose needs are to strive for profit when segmenting a specific market, and a consumer who wants to purchase what they want. All of the statements actually relates to the needs and wants of different parties, therefore knowing consumer behavior leads to a good communication of each party’s specific ideals.

Once the consumer behavior is understood the recognition of all the most basic necessities will arise and how each of the different attribute in the needs and wants of every person affects the buying or usage behavior of anything; products, services, etc. The examples are such as given a brand name Louis Vuitton or Coach, the perception towards the brand or the meaning of the brand to certain people, whether it is bonded by social status or an extraordinary liking towards some kind of value in the product & services, customers buy it with different reasons of may be quality or even by obtaining the products of the stated brand the individual will feel like being perceived as rich and has higher status compared to other people.

Conclusion

The assignment began with the investigation of what makes a consumer pay more to purchase at Coffee Bean rather than a normal coffee shop and then by later defining an importance of consumer behavior an overall idea is created that the consumers consumption behavior or patterns are different and there is no real fixed answers towards consumers behavior because the behaviors will not or may change from time to time and the expression of all the values in the consumer behavior is too vague to clearly help give a perfectly clear answer but with a better understanding towards consumer behavior any individual will be able to adapt better and come to an outcome based on their needs and wants of their own.

IntroductionQ2

Friends and society opinions on the products and services are always one of the factors influencing individual buying behavior, comment on how Facebook enhance the impacts from friends and society towards buying behavior.

In the society of today, technological advances are constantly improving and with the technology acquired, the internet is one of the tools which are frequently used at all times by almost anyone and with excellent broadband speed everyone who uses it will have the speed of surfing the virtual world. The whole world is connected through the internet and with so many social networks on the internet everyone stays connected via the networks on the internet with any computers or portable hand-held devices. And today one particular social network is known all over the world which is called Facebook. The facebook can be defined as a social networking website that is operated and privately owned, its founder was Mark Zuckerberg, a university student of Harvard. First and foremost the reason why facebook is so commonly used nowadays is due to its free services unlike compared to other social networks in which might require payment. And due to the widespread of usage, the facebook has become the most commonly used application as well.

Seemingly an opinion of a friend and society are one of the factors influencing the buying behavior of an individual. And with facebook it will as well give an impact from the two groups stated towards the buying behavior.

Cognitive Dissonance

First off, is the reason why an individual’s buying behavior is easily influenced by the external parties, this is because of the cognitive dissonance that happens in the individual’s decision. Whereby the individual’s internal decision and external influence collides which is caused by two contradictory ideas at the same time. Hence the individual would have a hard time deciding on a concluded decision. The example will be shown in the Picture 1.0 below:

C:UsersUserDesktopUntitled.jpgPicture 1.0

As we can see in the Picture 1.0, the individual is trying to make a decision and hence asks in general for suggestions but in return different answers are given as well, this will in turn influence the individual’s decision of choosing the product which was first in mind or other substitute products suggested by the external party.

With the example, an assumption can be made that people are easily influenced by the external parties which are the friends or society during a decision in purchasing a specific product. Due to the lacking in knowledge or experience of some certain products the individual would tend to ask for feedback and suggestions firsthand from other knowledgeable or experienced people who has purchased the product before. Hence with that it would normally affect the individuals buying decision.

How Facebook Enhance the Impacts from Friends and Society towards Buying Behavior

At the first point referring to the Picture 1.0 it is one of the ways that the social network facebook impacts on the individual’s buying behavior, having so many choices available an individual would mostly want to do more information search before buying anything and hence the usage of a social network helps speed up information search. On the other hand due to the social networks widespread the individual’s friend would see the post as well and therefore would leave comments about their suggestions towards the individual and that would give an impact towards the buying behavior of the individual.

Another way that the facebook would enhance the impacts from friends and society is through the electronic medium, in which consists of advertisements or promotions, as an example Picture 2.0 will be showing an announcement which is similar to a promotion. C:UsersUserDesktopabcccc.jpg Picture 2.0

With Picture 2.0 showing the promotion of a new coffee blend and its small descriptive finish, it shows how the facebook enhances the impacts from society towards the buying behavior of an individual. In relation to Picture 2.0, as an example a company would use the facebook as one of the facilitator for the business. By creating a page with their own company profile then letting the consumers join the particular page and lastly putting up an announcement or promotion to create a want for the certain product making the targeted audience aware of it, in which this case eases the company in terms of advertisement and as well as cutting cost since facebook is free.

Finally another factor that makes facebook an enhanced impact towards the buying behavior is due to the trend of facebook, it may be perceived as a business trend of networking or for some individual’s it is a behavioral fad because the stated individuals would want try and copy others by having the latest in-trend product at hand and then share it out with other individuals about the product obtained. In other words, it can also be perceived as the social status requirements of certain individuals whereby the individuals would want to be perceived as the upper class in the society therefore facebook would affect the buying behavior due to different trend setters that makes different customers want to join in the trend race.

Conclusion

In writing this assignment an investigation is carried out to find out why customers would rather pay more to purchase at coffee bean rather than a normal coffee shop, and by that after finding out the actual fact is that the customer is paying more than just a price or for the brand luxury for coffee. As the overall experiences of coffee bean created to suit and attend to different customer needs is what most customers want by paying a decent price for it and are worthwhile. As a concluded review from all the overall service and features of coffee bean it can be said that the customer find it attractive and is worth paying the extra dollar for good service and coffee.