CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
Consumer buying behaviour can be defined as the buying behaviour of final consumers who buy goods & services for personal consumption. The consumers across the world are diverse & so are the product & services & companies. What prompts them to buy or not to buy is the question?
MODEL OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR :
Marketing and other stimuli
Black Box
Buyers Response
4 Ps
EnvironmentalPolitical Technological Economiic Cultural
Buyers mind
Buy or not to buy
SocialWord of Mouth Reference Groups
His characteristics and Decision Process
Product choice Brand choice Dealer choice Purchase timing Purchase Amount
WHEN DOES HE BUY
Howard and Sheath have described thee buying situations as:
Buying situations :
Routinized Response Behaviour or Straight Rebuy :-
Limited problem solving or Modified Rebury :
A change in customers decision criteria. eg. Introduction of a new brand or product. Puts in a little more effort.
Spends little or no time in choosing an alternative, Brand loyalty is relatively higher. Perceives low risk in buying a product.
Extensive problem solving or New Task :
to evaluate different brands.
High risk involved. Requires extensive learning on the part of the buyer. Customer is not aware of the various alternatives & hence is not able
FACTORS AFFECTING CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR :
Consumer purchases are strongly influenced by
cultural, social, personal & psychological characteristics.
Cultura l
Culture Subculture Socialclass
Socia l
Referenc e Groups Family
Personal
Age and lifecycle stage Occupation Economic situation Lifestyle Personality and self-concept
Psychologica
Motivation Perception Learning Beliefs and Attitudes
Buyer
Roles and status
CULTURAL FACTORS :
Socialclass Culture
Subculture
Culture:
The set of basic values, perceptions, wants and behaviour learned by a
member of society from family & other important institutions. Culture is the basic cause of persons wants & behaviour.
Subcultures :
Social class :
Each culture consists of smaller sub-cultures which have shared value
systems. It includes, nationalities, religion, social groups and geographic regions. Many sub-cultures make up important market segments.
Relatively permanent and ordered divisions in a
society whose members share similar values, interests and behaviour. E.g. higher class, lower class in a sub-culture.
Major Social classes :
Upper-UpperLowerUpper
*Upper-middle *Working class *Upper lower *Lower-lower
* SOCIAL FACTORS : Reference Groups:
A persons behaviour is influenced by a group. Ref. groups expose a person to new behaviours & life styles,
attitudes & self-concept and exert pressures to conform; that may affect buyers behaviour. The marketers must reach to the Opinion Leaders.
Referencegroups
Membership groups
Nonmembership groups
Secondary Primary
Family friends School Friends Religion groups
Aspirational
Disassociation
PERSONAL FACTORS :
Age & life cycle stage :
Tastes & preferences keep on changing according to a persons age. Traditional family life cycle included : young singles and married
couples with children. But now we have non-traditional stages, eg.:
Occupation : Lifestyle : A persons pattern of living as expected in his /her activities,
interests and opinions. It involves measuring consumers major AIO dimensions
Unmarried couples Childless couples (DINK)
Activities (work, hobbies, shopping, sports, social events), Interests (food, fashion, family, recreation) and Opinions (about themselves, social issues, business, products).
PERSONALITY AND SELFCONCEPT : Self concept :
The unique psychological characteristics that lead to relatively
consistent and lasting responses to ones own environment.
Many marketers use the concept of self-image or self-concept (instead
of personality) to understand the consumer behaviour. They believe in the concept we are what we have
PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS :
Motivation
A person has many needs at a given time. A need becomes motive when it reaches a certain level of intensity. A motive is a need that is sufficiently pressing to direct the person to
seek satisfaction of the need..
PERCEPTION :
The process by which people select, organize and interpret
information to form a meaningful picture of the world. Why do people form different perceptions? People can form different perceptions of the same stimulus because of the 3 perceptual processes
Selective attention
Selective distortion
Selective retention
Learning:
Changes in an individuals behaviour arising from experience. Learning theorists are of the opinion that most human behaviour
is learned. Learning occurs through the interplay of drives, stimuli, cues, responses and reinforcement. * Beliefs and Attitudes:
A belief is a descriptive thought that a person has about The beliefs
make up brand or product choices.
something. These may be based on real knowledge, opinion or faith and may or may not carry an emotional charge.
* Attitude:
Attitude is a persons relatively consistent evaluations and
feelings towards a product or idea. towards or away from them.
Attitude make people like or dislike a thing and hence they move
Attitudes are difficult to change.
*Types of Buying Decision Behaviour:
Based on the degree of buyer involvement and the
degree of differences among brands; following are the types:
High Involvement Low Involvement
* Significant differences
Brands
among
Complex Buying Behaviour Dissonance Reducing Behaviour
Variety- seeking Buying Behaviour Habitual Buying Behaviour
* Few differences among Brands
The buyer decision process:
It consists of five stages:
Need recognition Information search Evaluation of alternatives Purchase decision (most imp) Post purchase behaviour
* Need recognition:
Need recognition
Internal stimuli (basic needs)
Externel stimuli (Ads, Peer group, general discussions
Information search:
Sources of information:
* Evaluation of alternatives:
Personal (friends, family, acquaintances) Commercial (ads, websites, dealers, shelf-display) Public (product-rating organisations, internet searches) Experiential (handling, observing, using the product)
The stage in which the consumer uses information to
evaluate alternative brands available.
Marketers should try to identify which evaluation
process is normally follwed by the customers in their product category.
*Purchase Decision:
In this stage, the consumer ranks and forms purchase intentions.
*Post-purchase Behaviour:
The stage where the consumer takes further action after purchase,
based on their satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
