Analysis of the Passenger Electric Cars Consumer Buying Behavior and Preferences
Consumer Buying Behavior and Preferences
Consumer buying behavior includes the kind of activities that potential buyers tend to carry out before purchasing their desired goods or services. Consumer buying behavior is essential for the buyers to understand the value, qualities, and the market prices of the product before buying it. This behavior is similar for the consumers purchasing passenger electric cars. The consumers tend to engage in both online and offline activities, which aim at researching the benefits and recommendations of electric vehicles (Liao, Molin & van Wee, 2016). Through this activity, car assembly companies can tailor their effective marketing strategies that enable easier accessibility and purchasing of electric cars. Consumers get to make their purchasing decisions following the information they gather from online and offline sources and have compared the benefits of electric vehicles compared to conventional gasoline vehicles. It is through the consumer buying behavior that the potential buyers tend to make their buying decisions depending on their preferences influenced by the information they acquire from the available resources.
Concerning this matter, this study seeks to analyze the consumer behavior and preferences of passenger electric car consumers in Germany and the United Kingdom. The analysis will be effective in understanding the kind of information that the consumers look for and their preferred qualities of the cars in the two countries. The reason for conducting this kind of analysis is to understand the factors that influence consumer preferences and buying behavior for passenger electric cars in the two countries. It is essential to realize that there are varying influential factors that determine consumer buying behavior and preferences, such as personal factors, environmental factors, psychological factors, and socio-cultural factors (Lai et al., 2015). These preferences tend to lead into a categorical classification of buyers into an analytical buyer, driver buyer, expressive buyer, and amiable buyer, depending on their different tastes for the kind of product they need to purchase.
Features and Benefits that the Electric Passenger Cars Consumers Look for in the Two Countries
Before they consider buying passenger electric cars, consumers need to be aware of the benefits associated with these cars, as compared to gasoline vehicles. In both Germany and the United Kingdom, consumers look for certain outstanding features and benefits of electric cars that the gasoline cars lack. The first aspect that the consumers are more concerned about is the sustainability level of electric vehicles, which helps in protecting the environment and the natural resources. The most common benefit of electric cars is their level of sustainability, whereby they help in reducing fuel emissions, which are harmful to the environment (Weiss, Zerfass & Helmers, 2019). The introduction of electric vehicles has also contributed to improving the sustainability of energy sources. The EVs get powered using most domestic sources of energy, such as natural gas, nuclear energy, and coal, as well as renewable energy sources. The introduction of electric cars has helped to minimize ecological damage, which has mostly resulted from gasoline vehicles.
Another factor that the consumers look for in electric vehicles in Germany and the United Kingdom is the efficiency of the cars to offer transportation services. The cars get manufactured under an economic perspective of reducing fuel consumption. For this purpose, the model of the EVs has a significantly great deal of transportation, whereby the cost of charging the vehicle per mileage is averagely about 50% of fueling the gasoline vehicles (Lebeau, Macharis & Van Mierlo, 2019). This statement means that most electric cars have less cost per kilometer of traveling as compared to gasoline vehicles. According to Weiss, Zerfass & Helmers (2019), electric cars are as thrice as efficient internal combustion engine cars. The factor of consumption is of importance for the consumers in developed countries. Once a potential customer feels satisfied with the features and benefits of a vehicle according to their preferences, they then find it easy to purchase it as a way of having better means of transportation without struggles. The developed countries such as the UK and Germany are in a trend to end the manufacture of Internal Combustion Engines (ICEs) that are normally used in the gasoline vehicles.
Elsewhere, customers focus on evaluating the purchase cost of electric cars, which might be challenges for many. However, the manufacturers have put all economic aspects into consideration before designing these cars, which are available in all sizes that fit the passenger needs. They have lightweight engines that are not too huge for excessive consumption, and they are favorable in sizes that cater for efficient transportation. These features make the vehicles to be affordable, as opposed to the notion that these vehicles will be highly expensive due to their improved features. The market dynamics of electric cars are promising to the customers, where there are even favorable purchase terms such as a higher purchase. Some other offers and deals seem to lure the clients into buying the vehicles. For instance, these vehicles come with guarantees of a certain period or a specific mileage, whichever comes first. These deals are very effective in making the cars available to desiring customers who need them for traveling purposes, mostly for daily use to and from work. On the other side, these vehicles have extra features such as arterial intelligence features that make them effective autonomous cars.
Marketing Objectives
It is always essential to conquer the target market by introducing the best marketing objectives, which will do business to thrive in a specified environment. There will be a marketing strategy for electric cars in the United Kingdome, which will ensure the domination of the market. The initial objective of this marketing strategy will involve emphasizing the novelty of the vehicles. This strategy will help in creating awareness about the uniqueness of the EVs and how they are radically new products (Lebeau, Macharis & Van Mierlo, 2019). This marketing objective will be effective in letting consumers know that this is not just an ordinary vehicle since it has new sensations and constraints that make it a delight for the new economy.
Secondly, going social will be another effective marketing objective that will help in educating consumers. I will use this strategy to share knowledge about electric cars to consumers by making them aware of the qualities and benefits of electric vehicles. Engaging social media audience will be a productive strategy to reach a large customer base easily. Reaching out to consumers on social media will consequently help to motivate them and shed light on them about the importance of using electric cars and the capacity of its services (Jing, Yan, Kim & Sarvi, 2016).
Other precise marketing objectives for the introduction and promotion of the EVs in the UK market will be opening up my mind for improvement, educating the customers on how to use the vehicles efficiently. It is also necessary to clear the doubts among consumers by assuring them there is an adequate presence of charging points along the highways.
These strategies will promote the market growth of electric cars in the United Kingdom in the following projected quantitative aspects.
- Growth of 440 %
- Market share of 3 %
- Sales Units: 230,000 cars & 4,900,000,000$
- The average unit price of $30,000
- Profitability % of 80%
- Customer satisfaction of not less than 97%
- Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for physical presentations
- Employees’ satisfaction to increase the level of productivity
Timeframe
The implementation of these strategies and the achievement of the said marketing objectives requires systematic planning, which will include a timeframe. Having a timeline will help me to know the crucial aspects related to employees and help in engagement with other potential customers (Jing et al., 2016). The timeframe for the marketing of these electric vehicles will be six months to one year. Six months is effective for the business to learn the consumers’ interactions with cars. Then the entire period of one year will help in determining the rate of purchasing the vehicles and the promotion of the business to a greater level.
| Forecasted average unit price (AUP) | $30,000 |
| Forecasted unit variable cost | $11,000 |
| Forecasted total fixed cost | $40,000 |
| Breakeven point (units) | 2 units |
| Breakeven point ($$$) | $19,000 |
References
Jing, W., Yan, Y., Kim, I., & Sarvi, M. (2016). Electric vehicles: A review of network modeling and future research needs. Advances in Mechanical Engineering, 8(1), 168781401562798. https://doi.org/10.1177/1687814015627981
Lai, I., Liu, Y., Sun, X., Zhang, H., & Xu, W. (2015). Factors Influencing the Behavioral Intention towards Full Electric Vehicles: An Empirical Study in Macau. Sustainability, 7(9), 12564-12585. https://doi.org/10.3390/su70912564
Lebeau, P., Macharis, C., & Van Mierlo, J. (2019). How to Improve the Total Cost of Ownership of Electric Vehicles: An Analysis of the Light Commercial Vehicle Segment. World Electric Vehicle Journal, 10(4), 90. https://doi.org/10.3390/wevj10040090
Liao, F., Molin, E., & van Wee, B. (2016). Consumer preferences for electric vehicles: a literature review. Transport Reviews, 37(3), 252-275. https://doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2016.1230794
Weiss, M., Zerfass, A., & Helmers, E. (2019). Fully electric and plug-in hybrid cars – An analysis of learning rates, user costs, and costs for mitigating CO2 and air pollutant emissions. Journal of Cleaner Production, 212, 1478-1489. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.12.019
Appendix A: Evolution of Electric Cars Share in the Market
Source: file:///C:/Users/HOST/Downloads/wevj-10-00090.pdf
Appendix B: Global market outlook for Electric Vehicles