Consumers Preferences and Fads Drive the Market

By Romana Rizwan
Consumers Tastes and Fads: How have popular brand names circumvented this nemesis and maintained their foothold in market?

Consumers' tastes, or more colloquially known as fads shape a lot of our lives and today's markets. But what shapes these fads or are they spontaneous examples of what we live or how we view ourselves and how rapidly do these fads affect the rise and shrinking of markets. At no other time over the centuries have tastes been so fickle as those we see and experience in the markets today.

Popular brand names often shape consumer tastes and can often buy over new consumers regardless of their price or features of the products. Although, this bias may be true for prices as some customers will overlook the higher price for a product as long as it is a brand name that they are either used to purchasing or they are convinced that a branded product will be of a better quality or simply the latest design available on the shelves branded products have more to their features than mere convincing trifles.

Most companies boast of producing products with greater durability backed by the guarantee of a brand name. Recently, these products have been subject to a high turnover, with markets opening up during the latest cyclical upturn and along with the increasing profitability of the products have driven relatively innovative changes in the product lines to further improve their profits and increasing their market share by introducing slightly differentiated products from year to year. This has also enabled them to expand into newer markets. Effective demand appears to have taken second place in predicting changes in tastes. With the introduction of new stock, the older stocks get sold to clear the market. This does underlie a major shift in trends though and is managed through a one way process, marketing products by large franchised based brand names established over a much longer term time horizon, as opposed to short-lived seasonal or introductory offers.

The other market, representing an alternative to large established brands are characterised by mass consumerism and are more responsive to consumers' tastes and can at times bring about drastic shifts in the markets. The ones that are successful are those that can respond to consumers' demands and meet fickle demand orders over much shorter term time horizons of within one year from the time the order is placed to the time of despatch. Fads though commonly characterise markets that can accept sudden change and maintain that change for long enough for a payback, for those who have made the investments and if they make their pre-emptory mark to maintain their market share and so the circle continues.

For the consumers, then is the change in tastes a reflection of their ostentation a desire to be identified along-with a particular group or simply brand loyalty at the upper end of the market? The public imaging groups spend millions in market research and consumers tastes what they would like to view the product as image making for the products and launching products suited to striking balances between functionality and durability and its outward appearance and to sustaining the demand for their products and maintain a growth in sales. Revivals are another interesting feature of past fads. Ambivalence certainly does not plague these markets.

Romana is an independent writer, on travel, health, crafts and small business. She has been writing analytical reports and articles and has a portfolio. She is a keen writer and wants to contribute to the development of e publishing and web content material.

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