IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ibn/ijmsjn/v9y2017i2p12-35.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring Buyer Motivation to Improve Management, Marketing, Sales, and Finance Practices in the Martial Arts Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Jason Earl Thomas

Abstract

The martial arts industry is experiencing immense growth, creating a highly competitive environment where challenges in attracting and retaining customers cause substantial losses and an inability to compete effectively. Customer memberships are the primary revenue source for fitness firms. Understanding buyer motivation is essential for marketing message creation and product development to attract and retain customers. The purpose of this qualitative, exploratory, single-case study was to investigate parent purchase motivation for children¡¯s martial arts classes and to document internal buying motives in order to address the problem of acquiring and retaining customers in the commercialized martial arts industry. The study sample consisted of seven parents, two instructors, and two owners. The data collection methods were semistructured interviews comprising open-ended questions. Interviews were analyzed using NVivo qualitative analysis software to code and analyze themes. The semistructured interviews identified 10 themes. Three new themes emerged¡ªease of participation, alternative to team sports, and convenience. Study findings contribute to the theory of planned behavior and theories used to predict purchase behavior. Recommendations for practice include refinements of product offerings and marketing messages and the creation of a new market segment, resulting in customer alignment and increased ability to attract and retain customers. Future research is recommended to replicate this study in other geographies, to use the data gathered in this study to seed qualitative research studies, and to weigh the relative influence of the three types of behaviors influencing intention in the theory of planned behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Jason Earl Thomas, 2017. "Exploring Buyer Motivation to Improve Management, Marketing, Sales, and Finance Practices in the Martial Arts Industry," International Journal of Marketing Studies, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 9(2), pages 12-35, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:ibn:ijmsjn:v:9:y:2017:i:2:p:12-35
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijms/article/view/66147/36230
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijms/article/view/66147
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Haiyang Yang & Antonios Stamatogiannakis & Amitava Chattopadhyay, 2015. "Pursuing Attainment versus Maintenance Goals: The Interplay of Self-Construal and Goal Type on Consumer Motivation," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 42(1), pages 93-108.
    2. Katherine White & Jennifer J. Argo & Jaideep Sengupta, 2012. "Dissociative versus Associative Responses to Social Identity Threat: The Role of Consumer Self-Construal," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 39(4), pages 704-719.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jason Thomas, 2018. "Individual Cyber Security: Empowering Employees to Resist Spear Phishing to Prevent Identity Theft and Ransomware Attacks," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 13(6), pages 1-1, April.
    2. Jason Earl Thomas, 2017. "Practical Application of Theory in Business," International Business Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 10(11), pages 10-19, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shavitt, Sharon & Barnes, Aaron J., 2020. "Culture and the Consumer Journey," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 40-54.
    2. Kareklas, Ioannis & Muehling, Darrel D. & King, Skyler, 2019. "The effect of color and self-view priming in persuasive communications," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 33-49.
    3. Bella Rozenkrants & S Christian Wheeler & Baba Shiv & Gita JoharEditor & Derek RuckerAssociate Editor, 2017. "Self-Expression Cues in Product Rating Distributions: When People Prefer Polarizing Products," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 44(4), pages 759-777.
    4. Dariusz Drążkowski & Maciej Behnke & Lukasz D Kaczmarek, 2021. "I am afraid, so I buy it! The effects of anxiety on consumer assimilation and differentiation needs amongst individuals primed with independent and interdependent self-construal," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(9), pages 1-19, September.
    5. Pizzetti, Marta & Chereau, Philippe & Soscia, Isabella & Teng, Fangyuan, 2023. "Attitudes and intentions toward masstige strategies: A cross-cultural study of French and Chinese consumers," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    6. Khalifa, Dina & Shukla, Paurav, 2021. "When luxury brand rejection causes brand dilution," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 110-121.
    7. Mishra, Sita & Shukla, Yupal & Malhotra, Gunjan & Arora, Vibha, 2023. "Investigating the impact of consumers’ patriotism and ethnocentrism on purchase intention: Moderating role of consumer guilt and animosity," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(4).
    8. Anne Hamby & Cristel Russell, 2022. "How does ambivalence affect young consumers’ response to risky products?," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 841-863, July.
    9. Ku, Hsuan-Hsuan & Shang, Rong-An & Fu, Yi-Fan, 2021. "Social learning effects of complaint handling on social media: Self-construal as a moderator," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    10. Gutt, Dominik & von Rechenberg, Tobias & Kundisch, Dennis, 2020. "Goal achievement, subsequent user effort and the moderating role of goal difficulty," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 277-287.
    11. Minji Suh & Hyewon Cho, 2023. "Cultural differences in giving experiential (vs. material) gifts," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 223-236, June.
    12. Cowan, Kirsten & Spielmann, Nathalie, 2020. "Culture is in the “I” of the beholder: Identity confirmation in tourist advertisements," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 378-388.
    13. Davis, Andrew, 2017. "It wasn't me, it was my festival me: The effect of event stimuli on attendee identity formation," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 484-500.
    14. Robert A. Peterson & U. N. Umesh, 2018. "On the significance of statistically insignificant results in consumer behavior experiments," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 81-91, January.
    15. Lili Wang & Zoey Chen, 2022. "The effect of incentive structure on referral: the determining role of self-construal," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 50(5), pages 1091-1110, September.
    16. Joëlle Vanhamme & Adam Lindgreen & Gülen Sarial-Abi, 2023. "Luxury Ethical Consumers: Who Are They?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 183(3), pages 805-838, March.
    17. Bonnie Simpson & Jennifer L. Robertson & Katherine White, 2020. "How Co-creation Increases Employee Corporate Social Responsibility and Organizational Engagement: The Moderating Role of Self-Construal," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 166(2), pages 331-350, October.
    18. Yang, Morgan X. & Zeng, Kevin J. & Chan, Haksin & Yu, Irina Y., 2021. "Managing loyalty program communications in the digital era: Does culture matter?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    19. Jeffrey K Lee & Enric Junqué de Fortuny, 2022. "Influencer-Generated Reference Groups [Nonprofits Are Seen as Warm and For-Profits as Competent: Firm Stereotypes Matter]," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 49(1), pages 25-45.
    20. Ryu, Gangseog & Kim, Boha & Park, Kikyoung, 2023. "Anti-counterfeiting advertisements for luxury brands in the post pandemic era: Roles of message type, visual presentation mode, and self-construal," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    buyer motivation; purchase behavior; consumer behavior; sports marketing; martial arts marketing; market segmentation; sales incentives;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ibn:ijmsjn:v:9:y:2017:i:2:p:12-35. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Canadian Center of Science and Education (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cepflch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.