Transformation in Consumers’ Cehaviours and Attitudes Toward Services in Romania

Since 1989, the fall of the communist era in Romania and until now, the services economy has known a gradual transformation towards a fully functional market economy. Even if the start was a slow and painful one, things have quickly accelerated when Romania entered the EU. The research purpose is to understand the consumers’ attitude and perception towards the quality growth and diversity of services as enhancers for the quality of life. The data were obtained from the SNA Focus national study, one of the most well-known studies used in the Romanian marketing industry. The study accounts more than 10,000 respondents, aged between 14 and 74 years and data from the last 11 years 2007 to 2018, focusing the analysis on the purchasing behaviour and consumption of services collected in the study. The years of major turning points for the Romanian economy are taken into consideration, namely, 2007, the entry into the EU, 2008 the last year of growth before the economic crisis, 2012 the achievement of the minimum point in the crisis, 2015 the official exit from the crisis and 2018 the year of the maximum economic development of Romania. With the economic growth and the development of the Romanian service sector, the level of education of the consumers increased and also their level of exigency. Thus, the present paper shows the type of connection between increasing service levels and satisfaction. This analysis is useful in terms of correlating the level of investment growth and, implicitly, the level of service development with the exigencies of consumers in order to determine a sustainable growth of the services sector.