Consumers were disappointed because the festival marketplace had lost its natural and special appeal. Many small units were replaced by large chains and super chains. The most important is that market types stalls disappeared. The main problem is that large retails chains include evaluating a myriad of products and services, translating them into purchasing decisions, and doing so efficiently. This process may even be more complex for some goods. Through the life-cycle concept, a family may be viewed as a social group, and consumption is studied in terms of changes in the social relations, status, roles of the members of the family, family size, and composition. For example, one theory of consumption maintains that there is a “standard package” of items consumed at every stage in the life cycle.
It is relatively easy to state that the function of business is to satisfy customer wants and needs. But customers do not specify the products they will desire and, in fact, do not know their future wants. Yet, executives are forced to forecast well in advance what consumers will decide to purchase. Thus marketing executives operate under conditions of great uncertainty. First, they cannot identify customers precisely — as individuals, families, households, or social and business groups.
Second, although it is difficult to discover the scope of customer wants at any moment, it is even harder to predict their wants and needs over a period of time, since desires change, sometimes drastically and rapidly. Some of the changes stern from sociological and psychological factors; others are economically based. Third, it is hard to translate wants and needs into products and services that lead to profitable market opportunities. Not content to recognize customer wants and needs, manufacturers and retailers attempt to cultivate markets through promotion and information.
Through innovation and market communication, they stimulate buyers to redefine needs, shift wants, and increase expenditures and consumption. By so doing, they have a great effect on economic well-being since the combined impact of consumer decisions reverberates throughout society.