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Introduction To CBB

This document discusses consumer buying behavior and business-to-business buying behavior. It defines consumer behavior as the processes used to make purchase decisions and use/dispose of goods and services, including influences on purchases. Business-to-business marketing is defined as marketing goods and services to organizations for non-personal use. The document introduces a black box model of consumer buying behavior that shows internal and external factors influence responses. It notes psychological influences like perception, motivation, learning, beliefs, attitudes, and personality shape responses in the black box model.

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59 views

Introduction To CBB

This document discusses consumer buying behavior and business-to-business buying behavior. It defines consumer behavior as the processes used to make purchase decisions and use/dispose of goods and services, including influences on purchases. Business-to-business marketing is defined as marketing goods and services to organizations for non-personal use. The document introduces a black box model of consumer buying behavior that shows internal and external factors influence responses. It notes psychological influences like perception, motivation, learning, beliefs, attitudes, and personality shape responses in the black box model.

Uploaded by

rajeshlogapriya
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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1 Introduction
All buying decisions, whether personal or on behalf of an organisation, are made by people, and,
though it may often seem to be irrational, buying behaviour is , on the whole, purposeful and
goal-directed. Understanding the buying behaviour of its customers is crucial to a firm's success.
The firm that can anticipate how its potential customers will respond to its marketing strategies
will have a competitive advantage.

Generally, buyers are classified either as consumers or business buyers . Consumer behaviour
has been defined by Summers et al. (2003, p. 24) as:

. processes a consumer uses to make purchase decisions as well as to use and dispose of
purchased goods and services; also includes factors that influence purchase decisions and the use
of products..

Contrast this definition with that which Summers et al. (2003, p. 67) provide for business-to-
business marketing:

the marketing of goods and services to individuals and organisations for purposes other than
personal consumption.

So the basic distinction between the two is whether or not the purchase is for personal
consumption.

You will find that business-to-business marketing (B2B) is also referred to as industrial
marketing and organisational marketing. Thus you will read about business buyers, industrial
buyers and organisational buyers. They are all the same, and they differ from consumers in terms
of their buying behaviour. While we are talking about terminology, we tend to refer to 'buying'
when we talk about businesses, and to 'purchasing' or 'consumption' when we talk about
consumers-although there is a frequent interchange between these.

Although the primary buyers for port and terminal services are organisations, we begin our study
with consumer buyers, because many of the sociological and psychological principles of
consumer buying behaviour are applicable to business buying-professional buyers do not cease
to be persons. It is also worth remembering that the consumer is the ultimate buyer of the goods
that maritime or logistics organisations handle on behalf of other organisations, and consumers
are, therefore, of interest to us.

4.2 Consumer buying behaviour


 The study of how and why people purchase goods and services is termed consumer
buying behaviour . The term covers the decision-making processes from those that
precede the purchase of goods or services to the final experience of using the product or
service. Models of consumer buying behaviour draw together the various influences on,
and the process of, the buying decision. They attempt to understand the proverbial
'blackbox' of what happens within the consumer between his or her exposure to
marketing stimuli and the actual decision to purchase.
 In the next reading, Kotler et al. (2004) briefly explain the 'black box' model; however
Figure 4.1 shows the content and process involved much clearer.

Figure 4.1 Black box model of consumer buying behaviour


Source: Keegan et al. (1992, p. 193)

The essence of the model is that it suggests consumers will respond in particular ways to
different stimuli after they have 'processed' those stimuli in their minds. In more detail, the model
suggests that factors external to the consumer will act as a stimulus for behaviour, but that the
consumer's personal characteristics and decision-making process will interact with the stimulus
before a particular behavioural response is generated.

It is called the 'black box' model because we still know so little about how the human mind
works. We cannot see what goes on in the mind and we don't really know much about what goes
on in there, so it's like a black box. As far as consumer behaviour goes, we know enough to be
able to identify major internal influences and the major steps in the decision-making process
which consumers use, but we don't really know how consumers transform all these data, together
with the stimuli, to generate particular responses.

Turn now to the following reading to begin looking at your text's introduction to buyer
behaviour.

4.2.1 Psychological influences


 Kotler et al. (2004) elaborate on several psychological variables influencing consumer
buying behaviour:
 perception
 motivation
 learning
 beliefs and attitudes
 personality and self concept.
 If you look back to Figure 4.1 you will note that Keegan et al. (1992) refer to these as
being included in the buyer's mind or internal factors.

Although your text covers the remaining psychological variables well, it is worth mentioning the
importance of attitudes. An attitude is a learned, relatively enduring feeling of being favourable
or unfavourable towards something, whether that might be, say a particular outlet, product or
brand. As attitudes are learned, they are difficult to change and they lead people to act fairly
consistently towards similar objects. As marketers, therefore, it is much more appropriate that we
should try to match our products to people's attitudes rather than try to change those attitudes.
This is particularly relevant for international marketing, so please keep it in mind when you
study the following reading on an international aspect of consumer behaviour.

Also discussed by your text is why marketers use psychographics, including examples of how
psychographic data are classified via the Values and Life Style (VALS) 2 model. You may wish
to try the VALS questionnaire yourself by accessing the Web site at

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