Abstract:
Consumers are no longer focused on products and services, rather they want experiences and they want to be involved in the creation of experiences alongside companies offering those experiences. Experience is plays a vital role in the life of today’s consumer (Schmitt, 2003). Experiences can be created, staged and marketed by firms (Kotler & Keller, 2012). Firms can gain a competitive edge by designing engaging experiences charging their customers a premium price for it (Pine & Gilmore, 1998).Companies don’t sell experiences as their economic offering, they bundle experiences with the products or services that they offer, and this shows the immaturity of the experience economy. A notable change in consumer behavior was observed by Levy, “People buy products not only for what they can do, but also for what they mean”. This showed that the consumers no longer purchased a product for the functionality of it rather they purchased it due to symbolic meaning that they attached to the product (Levy 1963).
