LESSON 2: DECISIONS, BEHAVIORS AND INTERACTIONS

Learning Outcomes
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
1. Describe the role of consumers, decision, behaviors and interactions in their purchase.
2. Identify the different decision-making models and their role in consumer purchase
decision.

Lesson Topics
 Decision-Making Using Goals
 Decision-Making Model
 Interrupts
 Pre-purchase Activity
 The Search Effort
 Factors Affecting the External Search for Information
 Involvement

Direction: Read the action and write down what the BEST reaction could be to show self-control
and self-discipline. Reaction is what would you say back – how would you respond to the
situation.
ACTION REACTION
1. Your boss is attempting to sell you a product that you do
not want to buy because it is neither useful nor affordable.

2. You're excited to add to cart an online product endorsed

by your favourite artist, but you notice plenty of customers
leaving unfavourable reviews.
3. Your aunt offers you an insurance policy with a costly
annual premium but more comprehensive benefits
coverage.
4. You've noticed that the adult milk product in your mother's
grocery basket is about to expire in one week.
5. You want to purchase a facial beauty kit that is currently
trends on the market and that most of your friends have
used.
DECISION-MAKING USING GOALS
Sometimes goals will conflict. In these circumstances, the strongly active goal will
inhibitcompeting goals until the stronger goal has been achieved, at which point the weaker or
less active goal will re-emerge (Brendl et al., 2002).

Table 2.1 gives some purchase end goals and motivations, with examples. In
practice,marketers have little influence over consumers' main goals, since these often
derive from basic values. Marketers can try to influence the less abstract end goals, such as the
desired functional or psycho-social consequences, through promotional strategies. For example,
although it maybe difficult to persuade someone that he or she ought to dress well in order to
impress other people, we can much more easily influence those who already believe in dressing
to impress, perhaps encouraging them to shop at a specific retailer or buy specific clothing
brands. Thus these factors act as drivers for end goals, as shown in Figure 2.1

Consumers’ relevant knowledge about the product category (or, if you prefer, the problem
category) is obviously important in problem-solving (Crosby and Taylor, 1981), so inexperienced
purchasers are likely to take a knowledgeable friend with them when they go to make a major
purchase, such as a car. Sometimes relevant knowledge is brought forward from the individual’s
memory, and some knowledge is acquired during the purchasing process (Biehal and
Chakravarty, 1983). Any brands that have simply been remembered are part of the evoked set
and for regular pur chases or familiar product categories these may be the only brands that are
considered. The result of the information search process is to create choice alternatives, which
are further refined into a consideration set. The consideration set is the group of products that will
be actively considered.

In Figure 2.2, the many brands in the evoked set, and the even more numerous brands
that might be brought to the individual’s attention, are filtered and refined to create the
consideration set, which may only comprise a few brands. The individual will then usually select
one or possibly two brands to feed into the goal hierarchy as being the desirable brands for
solving the need problem.

FIGURE 2.1 Examples of purchase end goals

FIGURE 2.1 Drivers for end goals

FIGURE 2.2 Developing goals

DECISION-MAKING MODELS

These are the seven stages of Consumer Decision Process (CDP) developed by Engel, Kollat
and Blackwell or known as EKB model of consumer behaviour.
1. Need recognition. The individual recognises that something is missing from his or her life.
2. Search for information. This information search may be internal or external.
a. Internal: remembering facts about products, or recalling experiences with them as a
result of services.
b. External: reading about possible products, surfing the internet or visiting shops.
3. Pre-purchase evaluation of alternatives. The individual considers which of the possible
alternatives might be best for fulfilling the need.
4. Purchase. The act of making the final selection and paying for it.
5. Consumption. Using the product for the purpose of fulfilling the needs.
6. Post-consumption evaluation. Considering whether the product actually satisfied the need
or not and whether there were any problems arising from its purchase and consumption.
7. Divestment. Disposing of the product, or its packaging, or any residue left from consuming
the product.

The similarity between Dewey’s model and the CDP model is obvious, and similar criticisms apply,
but both models offer a basic outline of how people make con sumption decisions. People do not
buy unless they feel they have a need. A need is felt when there is a divergence between the
person's actual state and their desired state. The degree of difference between the two
states is what determines the level of motivation the person feels to do something about the
problem, and this will in turn depend on a number of external factors.

There are two possible reasons for a divergence between the desired and the actual states: one
is that the actual state changes, the other is that the desired state changes. In practice, it is rare
for the actual states and the desired states to be the same, since this would imply that the
consumer would be perfectly happy and have everything that he or she could possibly want,
which is rarely the case in an imperfect world.

Causes of shift of the actual state might be taken from the following list (Onkvisit and Shaw,
1994):

Assortment depletion. Consumption, spoilage, or wear and tear on the stock of goods or,
products within the individuals assortment.

Income change. This can be upwards, through a salary increase or windfall, or downwards
through, for example, redundancy.

Causes of shifts in the desired state are often more to do with marketing activities. This is
because new information may change the individual's aspirations. If the individual sees a
better car, hears a better digital radio or otherwise becomes aware of a better solution to the
problem, there is likely to be a shift in the desired state. From a marketing viewpoint, this
approach is most effective when consumers are already dissatisfied with their present products.

Changing desire is often brought on by a change in actual state; a windfall might prompt an
individual to start up a social enterprise that they had always dreamed of.

The psychology of complication says that people complicate their lives deliberately by seeking
new products, even though they are fairly satisfied with the old one. The psychology of
complication is the opposite of the psychology of simplification, which says that consumers try to
simplify their lives by making repeat purchases of a familiar brand (Hoyer and Ridgway, 1984). It
is probable that both these mechanisms act on people at different times. Since people often make
decisions on the basis of immediate gain and emotion, neurological factors often contribute to our
understanding of how and why people buy (Foxall, 2008).

Assortment adjustment is the act of entering the market to replenish or exchange the assortment
of products the consumer owns. Assortment adjustment can be programmed (habitual) or non-
programmed (new purchases). Non-programmed assortment adjustment divides into three
categories. Impulse purchases are not based on a plan, and usually just happen as the result of a
sudden confrontation with a stimulus – for example, in-store promotions might trigger an impulse
purchase. People often buy as a result of lowered stimulation levels; in other words, bored
shoppers might buy as a result of a stimulating promotion in-store (Sharma et al., 2010).

Assortment adjustment can take the form of either assortment replenishment, that is, replacing
worn-out or consumed products, or assortment extension, adding to the range of products owned.
Assortment replenishment will usually require very little information searching or risk, since the
product is already known. Assortment extension is more likely to lead to an extensive problem-
solving pattern.
INTERRUPTS
Sometimes the buying process cannot be followed exactly because events occur that force the
individual to rethink the situation. These events are called interrupts, and they fall into four
categories:
1. Unexpected information that is inconsistent with established beliefs. For example, if the
shop that the consumer had expected to buy from has changed hands or closed, the individual
has to look for a new supplier.
2. Prominent environmental stimuli. An in-store display might offer an alternative to the
original purchase (perhaps by offering a large price discount on a similar product). This may
divert the consumer away from his or her usual brand choice, or at the very least cause the
consumer to consider switching.
3. Affective states. Hunger, boredom or tiredness during a shopping trip might lead to a
change in goal. This may be a change away from looking for a new jacket, and towards looking
for the coffee shop.
4. Conflicts. These are the motivational conflicts (further discussed in Chapter 6). If an
individual is confronted with an approach-approach conflict, or an approach-avoidance conflict,
there will be a temporary cessation of goal attainment while new goals are formulated and the
conflict is resolved.

The effect of interrupts will depend on how consumers interpret the interrupting event. On the one
hand, the interrupt may activate new end goals (as when the shopping trip turns into a search for
a cup of coffee). On the other hand, a choice heuristic might be activated - for example, if the
unexpected information is a friend recommending a brand, this may activate a heuristic about
acting on friends' recommendations. Sometimes the interrupt is severe enough that the
individual shelves the problem-solving behaviour indefinitely (for example, if the unexpected
information is that the person has lost his or her job, the buying of a new jacket might be
postponed indefinitely; or if a prominent environmental stimulus such as a substantial govern
mental tax increase on diesel fuel is levied, one might think twice about buying a diesel vehicle).

PRE-PURCHASE ACTIVITIES
Having recognized the need, the consumer will undertake series of pre-purchase activities.

The information search comes from two sources an internal search (from memory) and an
external search (from outside sources). In both cases most of the information originates from
seller-based sources, and is therefore readily available and low-cost. If the internal information
search is insufficient, that is to say the individual does not have enough knowledge of the product
category to be able to make a choice, an external search will be undertaken.

Sources of information might be marketer dominated (advertising, blogs, vlogs, brochures,

product placements in films and TV shows, websites, salespeople retail displays, Twitter
campaigns, and so forth) or non-marketer dominated (friends, family, influential journalists,
opinion leaders, consumer organizations, government and industry reports, news stories, and so
forth). Word of mouth/mouse (Sethna et al., 2013) communications are generally more powerful
than any marketer generated communications, for the following reasons:

 Word of mouth/mouse is interactive, because it involves a discussion between two or more

parties (online or offline). This forces those involved to think about the communication.
 It allows for feedback and confirmation of the message in a way that one-way
communications like advertising do not.
 Because the source is a friend/family member, or indeed a trusted peer review, who has no
profit motive (unlike the marketer) the communication is more credible.
“Peer review” is now an important consideration for many companies. People often discuss
products and services: they like to talk about their own recent purchases, to advise people about
purchases and even to discuss recent controversial marketing communications. It should be
noted that non-marketer-generated sources are them selves influenced by marketers, and also
much of the consumers memory of the product comes from marketer-generated communications,
so that even the internal search is affected by marketers.
From a marketers viewpoint, the problem is that people will talk about products and companies
whether the firm likes it or not, and may very well discuss products in negative terms. A great deal
of word of mouth therefore is negative; bad news seems to travel twice as fast as good news, and
there is very little marketers can do about this, apart from be seen to be responsive in some
shape or form (Kim et al., 2016; Yin et al., 2016).

Sometimes an individual will set out with the belief that he or she has sufficient internal
information to make the purchase, but is then presented with new information at the point of
purchase. In other cases, people experience;choice paralysis; brought on by having too wide a
range of possible products to choose from (Shankar et al., 2006). Because choosing involves a
degree of emotional effort as well as cognitive effort (people often become stressed when faced
with a choice between expensive options) the individual may well make a hasty choice
(Baumeister, 2004). In other words, if the individual is finding it hard to choose, he or she might
cut the decision-making process short by just grabbing the nearest product, simply to end the
stress of trying to reach a decision.

THE SEARCH EFFORT

It is common for people with limited information to base their decisions on price, simply because
they lack the necessary understanding to make a judgement based on other features of the
product.

Search efforts are not very extensive under most circumstances, even for major purchases such
as houses, because of the amount of time and effort that has to be expended. Usually consumers
will continue to search until they find something that is adequate to meet their need, and will then
not look any further – with comparison websites carving out a niche for themselves. A Financial
Conduct Authority (FCA, 2014) report stated that most customers use the option of short-listing
uppermost quotes on price comparison websites before making decisions.

Information searches such as those carried out on the Internet and price comparison websites
can be time-consuming, but as users become more adept and as website design improves,
searching is becoming much more rapid. It is likely that people will become more price sensitive
as the ease of searching becomes greater-the cost of searching is low in terms of both money
and time, so it becomes easier to shop around for bargains (Campo and Breugelmans, 2015,
Melis et al., 2015) Limits on the search are shown in Figure 2.9

In some cases, consumers will visit websites that carry complaints about companies, for example
www.aspokesmansald.com. This is a public platform that leverages the power of social media to
force a response to a consumer complaint about a company. Online product recommendation
agents gather information from consumers, then search the web to find products that match the
consumer’s needs; there is evidence to show that these agents should offer more than one
solution for the consumer to choose from which of course dilutes the advantage to some extent
(Aggarwal and Vaidyanathan, 2003). Apart from specialist recommenders like
aspokesmansaid.com, there are of course other popular examples such as Twitter and Facebook,
which both provide a platform for consumer complaints.
 Intention to
continue searching Financial Cost

Perceived value of
Time cost
the information

FIGURE 2.9 Limits on the information search

FACTORS AFFECTING THE EXTERNAL SEARCH FOR INFORMATION

The extent and nature of the external search for information will depend on a range of factors
connected with the consumer’s situation, the value and availability of the information, the nature
of the decision being contemplated and the nature of the individual.

The type of problem-solving adopted will depend on the task at hand. A programmed decision
pattern will lead almost immediately to purchase these are the regular always-buy-the-same-
brand-type decisions. Non-programmed decisions may still lead immediately to a purchase by
impulse but this type of decision pattern will more likely lead to limited or extensive information
search patterns.

The perceived value of the information is important in terms of how extensive the information
search will be. In other words, the extent of the external search depends on how valuable the
information is. If there is plenty of information in the internal files within the consumer’s mind, the
extent of external information seeking will be correspondingly less; consumers who are highly
familiar with the product will search less than those who are only moderately familiar with it
(Bettman and Park, 1980).

The relevance of this information is also a factor; if it’s a long time since the last purchase, the
stored information may not be relevant any longer. New alternatives may have developed or the
product may have improved. If the individual was satisfied with the last product (which may by
now have been consumed or has worn out) the internal information will probably be regarded as
relevant, and the search will be less extensive or non-existent (Kiel and Layton, 1981).

Time is a cost relating to search. It is sometimes measured in opportunity cost, or in terms of

what the person could be doing instead of spending time searching. For example, highly paid
people may value their time highly because they can earn more money at a desk than they save
by shopping around, so they are prepared to spend money in order to save time. Poorer
consumers may be more prepared to spend time shopping around in order to save money
(Urbany, 1986).

Many costs used to be the out-of-pocket expenses of searching. So, clearly a consumer who
wanted to buy organic virgin olive oil might compare different brands in Waitrose but is unlikely to
drive to Sainsbury’s to compare prices, and would certainly not fly to Italy even though olive oil
would almost certainly be cheaper there. Of course, with the Internet awash with product
comparison websites galore, such searches now take a matter of milliseconds, and cost virtually
nothing.

The psychological costs of the information search include frustration, trawling Through websites,
latency, avoiding pop-ups, re-targeted online advertising, Driving to visit different shops, talking to
shop assistants and generally giving a Lot of thinking time to the search. Often people become
overwhelmed with the Quantity of information available, and will be unable to reach a decision
because Of information overload.

Sometimes the reverse happens and the consumer actually enjoys the shopping experience as
entertainment. Ongoing search is different from external search in that consumers go to look for
product information to augment stored product knowledge, often just for the fun of it. This can be
a more important motivator than a genuine need to buy something (Bloch et al., 1986).

Situational factors will also affect the product information search. The search will be limited, for
example, if there is an urgent need for the product. If one’s car has broken down on a motorway,
one is unlikely to phone around for the cheapest breakdown service. Other variables might
include product scarcity, or lack of available credit.

INVOLVEMENT
Involvement is the perceived relevance of the object based on the person’s inherent needs,
values and interests (Zaichowsky, 1985). It is about the degree to which the individual feels
attached to the product or brand, and the loyalty felt towards it. Involvement has both cognitive
and affective elements: it acts on both the mind and the emotions.

Involvement is sometimes seen as the motivation to process information (Mitchell, 1979). At a low
level of involvement, individuals only engage in simple processing of information; at high levels of
involvement, people will link incoming information to their pre-existing knowledge system, in a
process called elaboration (Otker, 1990). The degree of involvement will lie somewhere on a
continuum from complete inertia through to high involvement where we might expect to find an
intensity of feeling that borders on the religious. At the extreme, we would expect to find people
who worship celebrities, or are fanatical about religious beliefs or who have a brand tattooed onto
their skin (Harley-Davidson owners have been known to do this). Such extreme people have
often become involved with cult product offerings such as Star Trek memorabilia, Vans shoes or
the Volkswagen Beetle.

Someone who has no real interest in the product category and makes only routine purchases of
generic products (or no purchases at all) exhibits inertia. Someone with a mild interest in the
product exhibits a willingness to listen to explanations or advice about the product. Someone who
is involved at a medium level would take an interest in anything he or she happens see
concerning the product, and someone who
is highly committed would act seek out information Finally, someone who is totally committed to
the brand idea with it to the point of obsession.

People can experience message-response involvement or advertising involvement in which they

become eager to process information obtained fro advertising (Batrra and Ray, 1983). In some
cases the messages are passive (as in the case of TV advertising) whereas in other cases
messages involve more effect on the part of the observer for example print advertisements) and
some marketing communications permit a great deal of interaction (web-based advertising).

Purchase situation involvement is about the different contexts in which purchase take place. For
example, if one were buying a gift for a new girlfriend or boyfriend, or might be extremely involved
in the purchase since there is a high social risk involvement if a mistake is made. If, on the other
hand, the gift-buying is almost obligatory (e buying a birthday gift for a relative one has little liking
for and rarely sees), t involvement level will be considerably lower.
Ego involvement is about the importance of the product to the individual’s self-concept making a
mistake in purchase could lead to a high social risk-the individual’s sett concept might be
damaged, to embarrassing effect. For example, a committed vegan would be horrified to find that
a supposedly vegan product contained animal fat. In some cases, the product purchase is linked
to a & tribe: such communities are supported by social networking sites, celebrity affiliations and
self-generated communications (Hamilton and Hewer, 2010)

High product involvement is driven by the degree to which the individual feels that the products
attributes are linked to end goals or values. Lower levels of involvement occur if the attributes
only link to function, and very low levels of involvement occur if the product attributes are
irrelevant to consequences.

In other words, high-involvement products are those that figure strongly in the individuals lifestyle.
They involve decisions that are important to get right, preferably first time. In most cases these
products are ones the consumer knows a lot about and about which he or she has strong
opinions. This means that high-involvement consumers are hard to persuade: they will not easily
be swayed by advertising, or even by persuasive sales pitches. For example, a website developer
might favour specific software, but if the software is unavailable he or she is unlikely to be
persuaded by a salesperson that a different application is just as good. The discrepant
information is ignored or disparaged, so the source of the information (the
salesperson) will lose esteem in the eyes of the developer.

Levels of involvement are influenced by two sources: personal sources and situational sources.
Personal sources (also called intrinsic self-relevance) are derived from the means-end knowledge
stored in the individual’s memory, and are influenced both by the person and by the product.
People who believe that the attributes of the product link to important end goals are likely to be
more heavily involved with the product because the importance of the end goal means that it is
more important to be right first time. Even products such as snacks can have personal
involvement issues-pre-teen girls have been shown to have very specific requirements for snacks,
based on what friends find acceptable (Dibley and Baker, 2001). Involvement does not
necessarily depend on the outcome being positive; sometimes involvement might be greater if the
possible outcomes are negative, since the consumer will take care to choose products that will
avoid negative outcomes.

DIMENSIONS OF INVOLVEMENT

It is possible to use these dimensions of involvement to segment the market for a given product.
For example, for some people an Apple Watch might have a strong sign value, while for others it
has a strong pleasure value the approach to each of these groups would be different in terms of
marketing communication. There are, of course, other factors at play here too – a high status sign
can give pleasure to an individual, not to mention the possible hedonistic and functional values
that could also be derived from owning such products.

Laurent and Kapferer (1985), whose seminal paper initially showcased this five-factor model for
assessing the dimensions of involvement, described the factors as follows, together with
references to recent studies on each area:
1. The personal interest a person has in the product category, its personal meaning or
importance. For example, people often become very involved in art galleries or
orchestras (Gurel and Nielsen, 2018).
2. he perceived importance of the potential negative consequences associated with a poor
choice of product (risk importance) (Lin et al., 2018).
3. The probability of making a bad purchase (Bhandari and Rodgers, 2018).
4. The pleasure value of the product category (Hassenzahl, 2018).
5. The sign value of the product category (how closely it relates to the self). (Bhatt et
al.,2018)

Chocolate scores high in terms of pleasure, but low on sign value and risk value. The evidence is,
therefore, that different products may be high involvement for different reasons.

INVOLVEMENT WITH BRANDS

People often develop relationships with brands. Typical examples might be favourite perfumes,
jeans, cars, cigarettes, coffee, and so forth. Research by Brann Consulting showed that people
are more likely to think of their brand of coffee as a friend than they are to think of their bank this
way: banks are acquaintances at best, enemies at worst. This may seem surprising considering
that banks are composed of people, whereas coffee is inanimate, but it is perhaps due to the fact
that coffee is consumed at home or with friends whereas bank services are often regarded as an
unpleasant necessity.

The relationships that the individual has with both the brand and the product are very closely
intertwined. Drivers often develop affectionate relationships with their ca personalizing them with
stickers and accessories, and not infrequently giving the a name Drivers even talk to their cars
(sometimes in less than flattering term A recently a lot of us have been talking to our voice
activated personal assistant, Sin But how many of us would switch loyalties and employ the
services of either Ale (from Amazon Echo) or Cortana (from Microsoft)? Involvement also has an
on decision-making styles (Bauer et al. 2006). Even when the products themselves might be
considered to have few differences, people are prepared to pay more the branded product-
research in the USA showed that people would pay more branded pork than for unbranded pork
(Ubilava et al. 2011).

Involvement can also be considered in terms of attachment theory, specifics avoidance and
anxiety factors. Avoidance factors are those that make people sh relationships due to a fear of
intimacy while anxiety factors are those that ma people fear loss, anxiety or rejection. People who
are low or high on both dimensions report high satisfaction with brands, whereas people who are
high on one dimension and low on the other report low satisfaction rates (Thompson and Johnson,
2002 This means that people with a fear of becoming dependent and a fear of loss will be less
likely to form relationships with brands and will therefore have no problem with them, whereas
people who have no fear of becoming dependent and also to fear of loss will have many favourite
brands. There are gender differences in brand relationship formation: when considering the two
propositions 1 understand the brand and The brand understands me women use dimensions to
judge their closeness to the brand, whereas men judge only by their own actions towards the
brand (Kauppinen Räisänen et al. 2018; Monga, 2002).

For any given product category, people can be classified according to their level of involvement.
Even when the product has other products associated with it, the involvement may apply only to
one of the products: for example, someone might be staunchly loyal to a brand of gin (say
Hendrick without caring much which brand of tonic water (Fentimans, Canada Dry or Schweppes)
goes in with it. While it is true that some people may be heavily involved in several brands, there
is no evidence that high involvement in one brand will lead to high involvement in another brand
from a different product category.

Involvement does not always equate with price. A high-involvement product is not necessarily a
high-priced one, nor is a low-involvement product always a cheap one Beer drinkers can be
heavily committed to their brand of beer, costing only a few pounds a pint, whereas other people
might not care what make of car they drive as long as it gets them from point A to B. High
involvement always has a strong affective component, and this does not necessarily mean a high
cost commitment - people also fall in love with cheap (or rather more cost-effective)
products.
INCREASING INVOLVEMENT LEVELS

From a marketers viewpoint, increasing consumers involvement levels is clearly a priority.

Marketers will try to increase consumer involvement with the products whenever it is possible to
do so, since this will make communications easier and loyalty levels higher. As Figure 2.17
summarizes, there are various techniques available to marketers for encouraging consumers to
process relevant information, as follows (Stewart and Furse, 1984):

 Appeal to bedonie needs. Advertising that appeals to the senses generates higher levels
of attention (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982). There is evidence that the pleasure of
shopping tends to increase involvement with clothing (Michaelidou and Dibb, 2006).
 Use unusual stimuli to attract attention. Using 5D technology to further involve the
participant and inculcate a real experience, including elements such as rain water, aroma
and smoke.
 Use celebrity endorsement. The viewers involvement with the celebrity is likely to transfer
to the product, although there are dangers with this approach.
 Use prominent stimuli, such as fast action or loud music. This will help to capture the
viewers attention.
 Develop an ongoing relationship with consumers. This can often be done by using a well-
designed interactive website to generate involvement.

Ultimately, of course, consumers develop their own ideas about involvement, and will only
become involved in products that appeal to their innermost selves. Marketer can only facilitate a
process that would have happened (at least to some extent) in any case.

LOYALTY IN BUYER BEHAVIOUR

Involvement with a brand should in the vast majority of cases, lead to feelings of loyalty. In recent
years, marketers have taken the view that it is better t loyalty and therefore retain customers than
it is to keep recruiting new customer. This view has been expressed most clearly by Ehrenberg,
who proposed the leaky bucket theory In the past, most companies have operated on a leaky
bucker basis seeking to refill the bucket with new customers while ignoring the ones leaking away.
According to research by Gupta et al. (2004), a 1% improvement in customer retention will lead to
a 5% improvement in the firms value In other words customer retention is five times as effective
as cutting costs, especially. in customer acquisition cost only generates a 1% increase in firm
value Ehrenberg (2000) noted that loyalty differs far less between brands in a category than does
the number of buyers for each brand. Recent work by Dawes et al. (2015) has succinctly
encapsulated some of the areas used to measure behavioral loyalty towards brands.

 Repeat-purchase rate (Colombo et al., 2000; Fader and Schmittlein, 1993).

 Tenure (length of time a buyer remains a buyer) (East et al., 2001, Reichheld and Teal,
1996).
 Share of category requirements (Bhattacharya et al., 1996; Jung et al., 2010 Pare and
Dawes, 2011).
 Repertoire size (Banelis et al., 2013; Uncles and Ehrenberg, 1990).
 Purchase frequency (Morrison, 1966; Sharp and Sharp, 1997).
 Proportion of buyers who are solely loyal (Raj, 1985).

Satisfaction is not necessarily enough to generate loyalty, however East et al. (200 found no
evidence that satisfaction breeds loyalty, but have found evidence th satisfaction leads to
personal recommendations and therefore to recruitment of new customers. In fact, in many ways
people are not loyal and their loyalty cannot be bought only a small percentage of loyalty card
holders actually are loyal (Allaway et al. 2006), because most people carry several cards (Meyer
Waarden and Benavent 2006). Loyalty to the store tends to be higher in the case of online
suppliers, which may be a function of trust (Buttner and Goritz, 2008). Trust lends itself to
purchase Incidence meaning that heavy buyers of a category buy more brands, and are
consequently less loyal to any particular brand (Banelis et al. 2015). There are also those who
make only one-off purchases and should therefore not count as 100% loyal (Uncles and Lee,
2006).

The importance of the purchase has an effect on satisfaction and also on loyalty the more
important the purchase, the more disastrous a failure in performance will be and the greater the
effect on satisfaction and loyalty. Perhaps surprisingly if the purchase importance is low,
perceived performance has a stronger Influence on satisfaction (Tam, 2011).

If loyalty can be generated, though, it does increase profitability (Helgesen, 2006). Since
companies are often not good at acquiring new customers, loyalty becomes important (Ang and
Buttle, 2006). It also has the effect of reducing the evaluation of brand extensions - people tend to
assume that the extension will be as good as the original brand (Hem and Iversen, 2003). When
a brand grows, therefore, it is the change in penetration which is generally larger than the change
in loyalty (Baldinger et al, 2002 Dawes, 2009)

UNSOUGHT GOODS
So far, we have looked at consumer behaviour when seeking out goods to meet a specific
recognized need While most products fall into the category of being sought out as a way of
meeting a need there is a category of unsought goods that consumers do not look for.

Unsought goods are those goods for which consumers will recognise a need, but which they
nevertheless tend to avoid buying Examples are life insurance, wills and funeral plans (because
people prefer not to contemplate their own deaths), and some home improvements (because
major capital expenditures can always be postponed).

The possible reasons for not seeking out the products summarized in Figure 2.18, are as
follows:
 People do not like to think about the reasons for needing the products. Because people
do not like to think about old age and death, they prefer not to think about pensions and
insurance
 Given the vast number of stories in the press (for instance the Payment Protection
Insurance or PPI scandal), the consumer has come to perhaps mistrust marketers of such
products.
 The products are expensive or require a long-term commitment, and people do not like to
risk making a mistake.
 There is no urgency about seeking a solution. Retirement may be a long way off or the
roof may last another year or two.
 The consumer may not see any immediate benefit. In the case of life insurance, the
insured person never benefits directly, since the policy only pays out on proof of death.

Some unsought goods are new on the market, so the level of knowledge about them is low and
the individual automatically rejects any marketing approach because the benefits are not obvious.
Trust in both the product and the brand needs to be established first before information can be
transferred.
FIGURE 2.18 Reasons for postponing purchase of unsought goods

EXERCISE # 1 Critical Thinking (5 items)

Directions: Relate your answers to the real world and try to think of examples on your own.

Answer the following questions on a separate sheet of paper.

1. What type of information search would you expect someone to undertake when buying a new
type of motorcycle? Justify your answer.

2. What factors cause people to become involved in products or brands? Explain

3. How might a marketer increase involvement?

4. How can marketers reconcile the sale of unsought goods with the marketing concept?

5. What causes a product to move from being an unsought good to being a sought good? Give a
definite example in relation to your answer.

 Sethna, Z., et al. (2019) Consumer Behaviour. SAGE Publications Ltd.