In a competitive and complex marketing environment nowadays, identifying factors influencing purchase decisions of customer is an undeniably important task. The traditional marketing mix framework has been used by marketers and managers for years, yet no one has ever conducted a research on the impacts of this framework‘s components on purchase decision. This research paper is written with the intention of explaining the hypothetical impacts of marketing mix elements on purchase decision, taking the case of Apple Inc. in Hanoi, Vietnam as an example.
Research background is firstly mentioned, and then problem statement, research objectives and research significance are outlined in this Chapter.
1.1. Research Background
Marketing mix, simply put, is a set of marketing variables to be identified and controlled to meet customer demand. And the ultimate purpose of meeting customer demand is to influence purchase decisions of target customers. Both these two concepts (marketing mix and purchase decision) have been receiving much attention from academic community in the recent years. The framework of marketing mix was made known by Borden (1964) and modified by McCarthy (1964), which is widely used in marketing practices, while the concept of purchase decision is a stage of the Buying Decision Process, where the customer decide to buy a specific product (Kotler and Keller, 2011); therefore it is remarkably important. The detail literature review of these two can be found in Chapter 2.
Nowadays, the growing complexity (Ahmed, Hardaker & Carpenter, 1996; Gilmore & Pine, 1997; Doherty & Delener, 2001; Burnes, 2005; Yadav, Swami & Pal, 2006) and increasing competition of the business environment (Azad, Roshan & Hozouri, 2014) brings difficulties to marketers and managers in identifying, applying and controlling their marketing mix strategies.
The current situation provokes the researcher to assist marketers and managers to evaluate and to understand the impacts of marketing mix elements on purchase decisions. This could be considered as the major reason for choosing this research topic.
Three other reasons for choosing these research topics are: (1) Both Marketing mix (4Ps) and Puchase decision are undeniably important and popular research topics of the marketing literature. This research paper will contribute as a reliable source of information to future researches; (2) Apple was chosen as the research company because Apple is a sharply growing company, with unique marketing strategies. Analysis on Apple could be a distinctive case, playing the role of an example for other researches on other companies; (3) My personal concern
Further, as most academic articles relating to customer behavior were conducted in developed countries (Muzondo & Mutandwa, 2011), this research paper choices Hanoi, Vietnam as the research market, studying the views of customers towards the importance of four marketing mix components (as independent variables) on their purchase decision (as dependent variable). The second reason is because this country is considered as a potential market, as discussed above.
It should be noted that the major ideas of the research project were formed since I studied Bachelor of Business at James Cook University in Singapore. As I continue my studying, I have acknowledged that marketing is science. You can and should evaluate marketing efforts with quantitative data. My enthusiasm in understanding marketing concepts and their relationships has been driving me to choose marketing as the research area for my master thesis. From 2011 to 2015, I have been undergoing significant changes in modifying the research topics, from basic ideas to advanced ones. Recently, the research paper has been completed with the contribution of ideas from advisors and lecturers from I-shou University and Hanoi University of Business and Technology (HUBT). I highly appreciate their efforts in expanding the marketing knowledge, which are undeniably valuable to me in completing this research paper.
1.2. Problem Statement and Research Objectives
Nevertheless, identifying the appropriate (or effective) marketing mix strategies and controlling them are not easy tasks. In the growingly complex marketing environment nowadays, one of many research questions of marketing literature is identifying the impacts of marketing strategies on customers‘ needs and wants, leading to their purchase decision. So do marketing strategies, specifically marketing mix strategies (as independent variable), have impacts on customer purchase decision of customers (as dependent variable)? And if they have impacts on purchase decision of customers, to what extent are these influencing factors? These questions are undeniably important to marketers nowadays, as marketing mix strategies are widely used, and their impacts on purchase decision are a neglected research area.
Therefore, this research paper is written with the major purpose of clarifying the above problem, with hypothetical analysis on the case of Apple Inc. in the market of Hanoi, Vietnam. Four emerged research questions are:
RQ1: From customers‘ point of view, does the Marketing mix strategies have impacts on the Purchase decision?
RQ2a: Is there any difference between males and females in Purchase decision?
RQ2b: Is there any difference between single and married respondents in Purchase decision?
RQ2c: Is there any difference among age groups in Purchase decision?
1.3. Research Significance
The study is considered as important because of these following reasons:
Firstly, the research plays the important role as a reliable source of information for other researches on Marketing mix and Purchase decision
Secondly, the research paper analyzes the suggested hypotheses to find the impacts of 4Ps marketing mix framework (independent variable) on Purchase decision (dependent variable), specifically mentioning the case of Apple in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Thirdly, the findings of the research will provides to marketers and managers valuable information to effectively balance the impacts of their 4Ps marketing mix components with the purchasing decisions of their customers and offer more efficient marketing mix strategies.