Impact of location-based services on consumers’ buying behaviour, illustrated by the German market

Master's Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 2.0, University of Plymouth (Business School), language: English, abstract: Consumers’ environment has always been influencing consumers’ decision-making processes. With the end of the seller dominated marketing approach and the rise of a customer orientated marketing approach, at the end of the 1960’s, the significance of marketing communication increased, in order to inform consumers and to establish a customer relationship. The dissemination of new technologies and innovations such as colour television, home computer and the internet has contributed to an increasing benefit for consumers and organizations. Consumers’ choices increased in terms of product variety and hence the complexity of consumers’ decision-making processes rose. Therefore, it has been ever since relevant for marketers to analyse and evaluate consumers’ decision-making processes and consumers’ behaviour. With the evolution and diffusion from mobile phones to smart phones a newdf horizon for consumers opened and a new dimension to mobile devices added, consisting of the accessibility and availability of information regardless location and time. Consequently, consumers’ decision-making processes have been influenced and the relevancy of mobile-location based marketing and related services for consumers and organizations increased. The present master dissertation constitutes on the increasing importance of mobile location-based marketing and services. The objective is to investigate the impact of location-based services on consumers’ buying behaviour which is significantly impacted by consumer-decision making processes. Therefore, relevant theoretical models and theories concerning consumers’ decision-making process and buying behaviour are described and evaluated. Furthermore, primary data is collected via online questionnaires and face-to-face interviews, in order to conduct an empirical analysis. The results reveal that consumers’ requirements, towards mobile-location based marketing including location-based services such as shopping apps and mobile advertisement, are segmented. It is identified that technology affine consumers are more likely to purchase across-channels. Further, these consumers show a higher acceptance of stimuli conveyed by mobile advertisement. Personal and psychological factors such as price sensibility, lifestyle orientation and consumers’ involvement are identified as impacting factors on consumers’ decision-making process within this research.