A Research on Hedonic and Utilitarian Consumption Behavior of Young Consumers on Big Discount Days

Introduction

The concepts of consumption and consumer behavior are indispensable factors for marketing as well as economics and business. In the studies (Kim and Forsythe, 2007: Tendai and Crispen, 2009: Türk, 2018: etc.) carried out in the field of marketing, subjects such as how consumers are directed or directed to consumption behavior, how they perform purchasing behavior, what are their consumption motivations are investigated and continue to be investigated. Recent changes and developments in economic and social life affect both the marketing strategies of brands and the consumer behaviors. While brands try to reach consumers with different methods such as promotions and advertisements, consumers have started to show benefit based behavior by giving importance to hedonic and utilitarian consumption motives as well as products and services they will get during shopping. Brands aim to increase their sales, attract consumers to them, provide competitive advantage and try to direct consumers to buy and direct consumers to consumption behavior. Consumers are influenced by orientations and act with both emotionally focused hedonic consumption motives such as having fun, discovering new things and utilitarian consumption motives that are logically oriented such as saving money or time and seeing different product options and at the end consumers realize purchasing behavior.

One of the directions made by brands is seen on big discount days like Black Friday which is known as discount days. The Black Friday, which was first introduced in the United States, represents the first Friday after Thanksgiving day. From a historical perspective, the Black Friday big discount day, which was first used in the 1930s, became more popular after the 1950s. Black Friday, which is seen as an advantage for both consumers and manufacturers or retailers, has spread to several countries after birth in the United States and then spread to the whole world. Black Friday big discount day has started to be implemented in Turkey, where foreign companies and brands have located. Black Friday that started to be implemented by national and international brands in Turkey. Black Friday is incompatible with Turkish / Islamic culture. Therefore Black Friday has been implemented by national and international brands under different names such as Legend Friday, Legend Day, Super Friday, 11.11 etc. in both physical stores and electronic commerce websites in Turkey. In the following periods, different discount days were applied and continue to be applied not only in the Black Friday date range but also in different days of the year. As a result, while brands offer discounted products with special campaigns and promotions on different days of the year (Black Friday, Super Friday, 11.11, etc.), consumers act with hedonic consumption motives, which are focused on emotional behavior, and utilitarian consumption motives, which are focused on logical behavior, in order not to miss the opportunities offered during these big discount days and consumers show purchasing behavior with these consumption motives.