BUYER/CONSUMER BEHAVIOR NOTES
What is Consumer Behaviour?
Consumer behavior is the decision processes an individual or group
involving evaluating, acquiring, using or consuming goods and services.
A firm needs to analyze buying behavior for:
- Buyers reactions to a firms marketing strategy has a great impact on
the firms success - The marketing concept
stresses that a firm should create a marketing mix that satisfies
customers, therefore need to analyze the what, where, when and how
consumers buy - Marketers can better predict how consumers will respond to marketing
strategies of they understand the buying behavior
To understand, the buyer decision-making process, the general model of
the buyer decision process serves as a tool. This model consists of
these five steps or stages, including the postpurchase step or stage:
- Problem recognition
- Information search
- Evaluation of alternatives
- Purchase decision and purchase
- Post-purchase behavior
4.2 Models of the Buyer Decision Process
Figure 5 shows the common general model of the decision process.
Let us briefly look at the steps, as they are also called stages, of the
model. Actual purchasing is only one stage of the process. Not all
decision processes lead to a purchase.
All consumer decisions do not always include all stages.
- Problem Recognition: the first step is to recognize that there is a
need, for instance, the need for food since the buyer feels hungry; and
hunger stimulates the need to eat. That again triggers the need to
search information for food. - Information search: information search leads to internal search, from
memory or to the external search (from media, friends, shopping,
internet, etc.,), or from both internal and external search. This stage
may lead the stage of evaluating the alternatives. Which type of food to
eat? At what price? Where? And when? And how? - Evaluation of Alternatives: depending on criteria for evaluation
and features the buyer wants or does not want,
the buyer chooses the food to buy. - Purchase decision : the purchase decision includes product, package,
store, method of purchase and timing - Purchase: purchase may differ from decision, for instance, time of
purchase and product availability. - Post-Purchase behavior: this may be satisfaction or dissatisfaction
after purchase. There is a concept called Cognitive Dissonance- the
situation of doubt about whether the right decision to purchase was
made. This can be reduced by warranties, after sales
communication and supportive measures.
Factors Affecting the Consumer Behavior
The factors that affect the characteristics of consumer behavior:
- Cultural factors
- Social factors
- Personal factors
- Psychological factors
- Cultural Factors
Consumer behavior is deeply influenced by cultural factors such as:
buyer culture, subculture, and social class.
• Culture
Basically, culture is the part of every society and is the important
cause of person wants and behavior. The influence of culture on buying
behavior varies from country to country therefore marketers have to be very careful in analyzing the culture of different groups,
regions or even countries.
• Subculture
Each culture contains different subcultures such as religions,
nationalities, geographic regions, racial groups etc. Firms can use
these groups by segmenting the market into various small portions, for
example, by designing products according to the needs of a particular
geographic group.
• Social Class
Every society possesses some form of social class which is important ,
because the buying behavior of people in a given social class is
similar. In this way marketing activities could be tailored according to
different social classes. Here we should note that social class is not
only determined by income but there are various other factors as well
such as: wealth, education, occupation etc.
- Social Factors
Social factors also impact the buying behavior of consumers. The
important social factors are: reference groups, family, role and status.
• Reference Groups
Reference groups have potential in forming a person attitude or
behavior. The impact of reference groups varies across products and
brands. For example if the product is visible such as dress, shoes, car
etc then the influence of reference groups will be high. Reference
groups also include opinion leader (a person who influences other
because of his special skill, knowledge or other characteristics).
• Family
Buyer behavior is strongly influenced by the member of a family.
Therefore marketers are trying to find the roles and influence of the
husband, wife and children. If the buying decision of a particular
product is influenced by wife then the marketers will try to target the
women in their advertisement. Here we should note that buying roles
change with change in consumer lifestyles.
• Roles and Status
Each person possesses different roles and status in the society
depending upon the groups, clubs, family, organization etc. to which he
belongs. For example a woman is working in an organization as finance
manager. Now she is playing two roles, one of finance manager and other
of mother. Therefore her buying decisions will be influenced by her role
and status.
- Personal Factors
Personal factors can also affect the consumer behavior. Some of the
important personal factors that influence the buying behavior are:
lifestyle, economic situation, occupation, age, personality and self
concept.
• Age
Age and life-cycle have potential impact on the consumer buying
behavior. It is obvious that the consumers change the purchase of goods
and services with the passage of time. Family life-cycle consists of
different stages such young singles, married couples, unmarried couples
etc which help marketers to develop appropriate products for each stage.
• Occupation
The occupation of a person has significant impact on his buying
behavior. For example a marketing manager of an organization will try to
purchase business suits, whereas a low level worker in the same
organization will purchase rugged work clothes.
• Economic Situation
Consumer economic situation has great influence on his buying behavior.
If the income and savings of a customer is high then he will purchase
more expensive products. On the other hand, a person with low income and
savings will purchase inexpensive products.
• Lifestyle
Lifestyle of customers is another import factor affecting the consumer
buying behavior. Lifestyle refers to the way a person lives in a society
and is expressed by the things in his/her surroundings. It is determined
by customer interests, opinions, activities etc and shapes his whole
pattern of acting and interacting in the world.
• Personality
Personality changes from person to person, time to time and place to
place. Therefore it can greatly influence the buying behavior of
customers. Actually, Personality is not what one wears; rather it is the
totality of behavior of a man in different circumstances. It has
different characteristics such as: dominance, aggressiveness,
self-confidence etc which can be useful to determine the consumer
behavior for particular product or service.
- Psychological Factors
There are four important psychological factors affecting the consumer
buying behavior. These are: perception, motivation, learning, beliefs
and attitudes.
• Motivation
The level of motivation also affects the buying behavior of customers.
Every person has different needs such as physiological needs, biological
needs, social needs etc. The nature of the needs is that, some of them
are most pressing while others are least pressing. Therefore a need
becomes a motive when it is more pressing to direct the person to seek
satisfaction.
• Perception
Selecting, organizing and interpreting information in a way to produce a
meaningful experience of the world is called perception. There are three
different perceptual processes which are selective attention, selective
distortion and selective retention. In case of selective attention,
marketers try to attract the customer attention. Whereas, in case of
selective distortion, customers try to interpret the information in a
way that will support what the customers already believe. Similarly, in
case of selective retention, marketers try to retain information that
supports their beliefs.
• Beliefs and Attitudes
Customer possesses specific belief and attitude towards various
products. Since such beliefs and attitudes make up brand image and
affect consumer buying behavior therefore marketers are interested in
them. Marketers can change the beliefs and attitudes of customers by
launching special campaigns in this regard.
Types of Consumer Buying Behavior
Types of consumer buying behavior are determined by:
- Level of Involvement in purchase decision, importance and intensity
of interest in a product in a particular situation - Buyers level of involvement determines the reasons for motivation to
seek information about a certain products and brands but virtually
ignores others
The four type of consumer buying behavior are:
- Routine response/programmed behavior: buying low involvement
frequently purchased low cost items; need very little search and
decision effort; purchased almost automatically. Examples include
soft drinks, and milk. - Limited decision making: buying product occasionally. Requires a
moderate amount of time for information gathering. Examples include
clothes to know product class but not the brand. - Extensive decision making/complex high involvement, unfamiliar,
expensive and/or infrequently bought products. High degree of
economic/performance/psychological risk. Examples include cars,
homes, and education. It involves a lot of time seeking information
and deciding - Impulse buying, no conscious planning. The purchase of the same
product does not always elicit the same buying behavior. Product can
shift from one category to the next.
