The focus of this exercise was to get a closer look at the purchasing decisions of my target segments, college students who need textbooks. The three primary factors that were being studied was how the target segments evaluate different alternatives in purchasing their books for classes, how and where they actually buy the books, and how they feel about their purchases once they have bought the books.
In order to do this, I conducted three interviews with random students at the University of Florida that I met on campus. I asked them questions regarding all three of these factors and recorded their answers. After going back and reviewing the interview notes, I feel like I am able to gather some idea of how my target segment approaches their textbook purchasing decisions.
I asked the students about what matters most to them when they are deciding the best option of where to buy their books from. As I had suspected, the first thing all three said was price. This shouldn't be surprising because the entire reason I had this idea is because textbooks are too expensive so it's is only natural that the students would say that price was the biggest factor. After that, the next thing that is contemplated is what edition and what format is the book in? Some professors do not care what edition of the textbook the students have as long as it is not too old while others are sticklers for specific editions so this often affects where the students buy their books from. Students also care about whether the textbook is an online version or an actual textbooks. For students who truly prefer to have a physical copy of the book, this factor plays a part on where they buy their books from. The final factor that is evaluated is how soon do the students need the books and how soon would they be able to have the books. Certain classes will require books as soon as the first day of class so for students in such classes, time it takes to obtain the books is definitely a big point of evaluation.
These questions led me to asking them about where they buy their textbooks from and how they typically buy it. The most common answers were either the University of Florida bookstore or online, usually through Amazon or E-bay. As to what influences where the students choose to buy their books from, the above factors are what has led to these being the most common purchasing sources. The most common method used for purchasing the textbooks are a debit or credit card, along with some students being given stipends for textbooks that they are able to use as well.
Finally, I asked the students what they think of when they evaluate the purchase later on to see if it was a good or bad purchase. Across the board, they said that the first thing they think of is whether or not the textbook will provide any use for them once the class is done. Unfortunately, for the majority of students, the answer is no. This is why I feel like the online platform that gives students access to the books would be a great idea. The students are paying significantly less to access the books but that is okay because the students only need the access for usually one semester. It does not make sense to overcharge students for a commodity the majority of them have no use for after 3 months.
In conclusion, I would say that this exercise was helpful in learning more about the purchasing decision making of my target segment. I found that most of the segment is evaluating their purchasing options based on the same common factors such as price, edition, type of book, and time to obtain textbooks. The segment could do further evaluations of their purchasing options though. There are definitely more options to obtain books from besides just Amazon and the UF bookstore. Their final evaluation of the purchase once it has happened is based on primarily one factor: the utility they will have from the textbooks once the class is over. For the few that do have use for the books after class, they have less regrets on how much they spent for their textbooks. But the majority wish that they did not have to spend as much as they had to for books only used for a semester.
Great job as always, you interviews gave you a lot of insight into what matters most to the customers and their post-purchase evaluation. For me the post-purchase evaluation for a textbook and whether it was a bad decision or not is determined throughout the semester. If the textbook gets the job done for what I need it for then I don't regret the purchase. However, for example if there were times throughout the semester that I struggled finding information because the book was formatted differently than the courses, this would force me to regret the purchase.
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