MODULE IV

STUDYING CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

Buying Behaviour For Consumer Markets & Business/Industrial Markets

CONSUMER BUYER BEHAVIOUR refers to the buying behaviour of final
consumers-individuals and households who buy goods & services for personal
consumption.
All of these final consumers combine to make up the consumer market.
World Consumer market consists of more than 6.2 billion people.
Consumer around the world vary tremendously in age, income, education level,
and tastes. They also buy an incredible variety of goods and services.
MODEL OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

Marketing & Other Stimuli

Marketing
Other
Product
Economic
Price
Technological
Place
Political
Promotion
Cultural

Buyers Black Box

Buyer
Characteristics

Buyer decision
process

Buyer Responses
Product Choice
Brand Choice
Dealer Choice
Purchase timing
Purchase Amount

Types of Buying Situations

Complex Buying Behaviour
Consumers undertake this type of behaviour when they are highly involved in a purchase and
perceive significant differences among brands.
Consumers may be highly involved when the product is highly expensive , risky, purchased
infrequently, and highly self-expressive.
Consumer has much to learn about the product category.
For example, a personal computer buyer may not know what attributes to consider. Many
product features carry no real meaning: a Pentium chip , super VGA resolution, megs of
RAM.
Consumer will pass through a learning process, first developing beliefs about the product , then
attitudes, and then making a thoughtful purchase choice.
Dissonance-Reducing Buying Behaviour
Consumer take this type of behaviour when they are highly involved with an expensive,
infrequent, or risky purchase, but see little difference among brands.
For example, Consumer buying carpet may face a high-involvement decision because
Carpeting is expensive and self-expressive.
Buyers may consider most carpet brands in a given price range to be the same.
Because perceived brand differences are not large, buyers may shop around to learn what is
available, but buy more quickly. They may respond primarily to a good price or to purchase
convenience.

HABITUAL BUYING BEHAVIOUR

This type of behaviour occurs under conditions of low consumer involvement and little

significant brand difference .

For example, salt- consumer have little involvement in this product category they
simply go to store and reach for a brand. If they keep reaching for the same brand , it is
out of habit rather than strong brand loyalty.
Consumers appear to have low involvement with most low-cost , frequently purchased

VARIETY-SEEKING BUYING BEHAVIOUR

Consumers undertake this type of behaviour in situations characterized by low consumer

involvement but significant perceived brand differences.

In such cases, consumers often do a lot of brand switching.
For example, when buying cookies, a consumer may hold some beliefs , choose a cookie
brand without much evaluation, then evaluate that brand during consumption.
But the next time, the consumer might pick another brand out of boredom or
simply to try something different.
Brand switching occurs for the sake of variety rather than because of dissatisfaction.

FOUR TYPES OF BUYER BEHAVIOUR

High involvement
Significant differences
between brands

Few differences
between brands

Low involvement

Complex buying
behaviour

Variety-seeking
behaviour

Dissonance reducing
buying behaviour

Habitual buying
behaviour

FACTORS AFFECTING CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

Cultural
Culture
Subculture
Social Class

Social
Reference
groups
Family
Role & Status

Personal

Psychological

Age & lifecycle stage

Occupation
Economic
situation
Lifestyle
Personality
&selfconcept

Motivation
Perception
Learning
Beliefs and
attitudes

Buyer

CULTURAL FACTORS
Culture set of basic values, perceptions, wants, and behaviours learned by a

member of society from family and other important institutions.

Subculture- A group of people with shared value systems based on common life

experiences and situations. Subcultures include nationalities, religions, racial

groups, and geographic regions.
Many subcultures make up important market segments and marketers often design
products and marketing programs tailored to their needs.
Social classes- Relatively permanent and ordered divisions in a society whose

members share similar values, interests , and behaviours.

Social class is measured as a combination of occupation, income, education,
wealth and other variables.

SOCIAL FACTORS
Groups Two or more people who interact to accomplish individual or mutual

goals.
Reference groups serve as direct (face-to-face) and indirect points of comparison
or reference in forming a persons attitudes or behaviour.
Family- Family members can strongly influence buyer behaviour.
Family is the most important consumer buying organization in society.
Marketers are interested in the roles and influence of husband, wife, and children
on the purchase of different products & services.
Role & Status- A role consists of activities people are expected to perform
according to the persons around them.
Each role carries a status reflecting the general esteem given to it by society.
People often choose products that show their status in society

PERSONAL FACTORS
Age & Life-cycle Stage

- People change the goods and services they buy over their lifetimes.
-Tastes in food, clothes, furniture, and recreation are often age related.
-Buying is also shaped by the stage of family life cycle- the stages through
which families might pass as they mature over time.
- Marketers define their target markets in terms of life-cycle stage and develop
appropriate products and marketing plans for each stage.
Occupation
- A persons occupation affects the goods & services bought.
- Marketers try to identify the occupational groups that have an above-average
interest in their products & services.
- A company can even specialize in making products needed by a given occupational
group.
For e.g.- Computer software companies will design products for brand managers,
accountants , engineers, lawyers, and doctors.

 Economic situation

- A persons economic situation will affect product choice.

- Marketers of income-sensitive goods watch trends in personal income , savings,
and interest rates.
for e.g.- if economic indicators point to a recession , marketers can take steps to
redesign, reposition, and reprice their products closely.
Lifestyle
Lifestyle is persons pattern of living as expressed in his or her
psychographics.
Selected Segmentation Variables
Economy-minded people
Enthusiasts
Outdoors
Status Seekers
For e.g.- Whether a customer is style oriented or value oriented. A customer can choose
between Kawasaki Ninja if he thinks about style or a Maruti Alto if he thinks of
economy(5 people sitting capacity) that come will within same price range.

 It involves measuring consumers major AIO dimensions-

Activities- work, hobbies, shopping, sports, social events

Interests - food, fashion, family, recreation
Opinions about themselves, social issues, business products
Lifestyle Classification- SRI Consultings Values and Lifestyles
(VALS) Typology
VALS Two major dimensions-1. Self-orientation
2. Resources
Self-Orientation# Principle-oriented consumers who buy based on their views of world.
# Status-oriented buyers who base their purchases on the actions and
opinions of others.
# Action-oriented buyers who are driven by their desire activity , variety, and risk
taking.
Resources# Abundant Resources-high levels of income
# Minimal Resources- low levels of income

 Personality & Self-Concept

-Personality refers to the unique psychological characteristics that lead to relatively

consistent and lasting responses to ones own environment.
- It is usually described in terms of traits such as self-confidence, dominance,
sociability, autonomy, defensiveness, adaptability and aggressiveness.
- Personality can be useful in analysing consumer behaviour for certain products or
brand choices.
For e.g.- Coffee marketers have discovered that heavy coffee drinkers tend to be
high on sociability.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS
Motivation

Motive- A need that is sufficiently pressing to direct the person to seek satisfaction
of the need.
Motivation research collect in-depth information from small samples of consumers
to uncover the deeper motives for their product choices.
Perception- The process by which people select, organize and interpret
information to form a meaningful picture of the world.
Learning- Changes in an individuals behaviour arising from experience.
Learning occurs through the interplay of drives, stimuli, cues, responses, and
reinforcement.
Belief- A descriptive thought that a person holds about something.
Attitude- A persons consistently favourable or unfavourable evaluations, feelings,
and tendencies toward an object or idea.
People have attitude regarding religion, politics, clothes, music, food, and almost
everything else.

BUYER DECISION PROCESS

Need Recognition

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Need recognition
Information search
Evaluation of alternatives
Purchase decision
Post-purchase behaviour

Information Search

Evaluation of
alternatives

Purchase Behaviour

Post-Purchase
Behaviour

STEP I- NEED RECOGNITION

The first stage of the buyer decision process , in which the consumer recognizes a
a problem or need.
Need can be triggered by internal stimuli when one of the persons normal needshunger, thirst, shelter- rises to a level high enough to become a drive.
A need can also be triggered by external stimuli.
STEP II- INFORMATION SEARCH
The stage of buyer decision process in which the consumer is aroused to search for
more information; the consumer may simply have heightened attention or may go
into active information search.
Consumer can obtain information from any of several sources such as
Personal sources Family, friends, neighbours, acquaintances
Commercial sources- Advertising, salespeople, dealers, packaging, displays
Public sources- Mass media, Consumer-rating organizations
Experiential Sources- Handling, Examining, Using the product

STEP III- EVALUATION OF ALTERNATIVES

Consumer uses information to evaluate alternative brands in the choice set.
Consumers do not use a simple and single evaluation process in all buying
situations.
STEP IV- PURCHASE DECISION
The buyers decision about to which brand to purchase.
STEP V- POSTPURCHASE BEHAVIOUR
Consumers take further action after purchase , based on their satisfaction and
dissatisfaction.
What determines whether the buyer is satisfied or dissatisfied with a purchase?
Answer: Relationship between the consumers expectations and the products
perceived performance.
* Larger the gap between expectations and performance, the greater the consumers
dissatisfaction.

CONSUMER ADOPTION PROCESS

Adoption Process
The mental process through which an individual passes from first
hearing about an innovation to final adoption.
Stages In Adoption Process
Awareness: Consumer becomes aware of the new product , but lacks information
about it.
Interest: Consumer seeks information about the new product.
Evaluation: Consumer considers whether trying the new product makes sense.
Trial: Consumer tries the new product on a small scale to improve his or her
estimate of its value.
Adoption: Consumer decides to make full and regular use of the new product.

BUSINESS BUYER BEHAVIOUR refers to the buying behaviour of the

organizations that buy goods and services for use in the production of other
products and services that are sold, rented, or supplied to others.
It also includes the behaviour retailing & wholesaling firms that acquire goods
for the purpose of reselling or renting them to others at a profit.
MODEL OF BUSINESS BUYER BEHAVIOUR
The Environment
Marketing
stimuli
Product
Price
Place
Promotion

Other
stimuli
Economic
Technological
Political
Cultural
Competition

Buying Organization

Buyer Responses

The buying Centre

Product or service
choice

Buying
decision
process
(interpersonal and
individual influences)
(organizational
influences)

Supplier choice
Order quantities
Delivery terms and
times
Service terms
Payment

TYPES OF BUYING SITUATIONS

STRAIGHT REBUY A business buying situation in which the buyer routinely reorders something
without any modifications.
It is usually handled on a routine basis by the purchasing department.
Based on past buying satisfaction, the buyer simply chooses from the various
supplier on its list.
In suppliers try to maintain product and service quality.
Out suppliers try to offer something new or exploit dissatisfaction so that the
buyer will consider them.
MODIFIED REBUY A business buying situation in which the buyer wants to modify product
specification , prices, terms, or suppliers.
Modified rebuy usually involves more decision participants.
In suppliers may become nervous and feel pressured to put their best foot
forward to protect an account.
Out suppliers may see the modified rebuy situation as an opportunity to make
a better offer and gain new business.

NEW TASK
A company buying a product or service for the first time faces a new-task
situation.
Greater the risk or cost, the larger the number of decision participants and the
greater their efforts to collect information will be.
New-task situation is the marketers greatest opportunity and challenges.

MAJOR INFLUENCES ON BUSINESS BUYER BEHAVIOUR

Environmental
Economic
developments
Supply
conditions
Technological
Change
Political &
regulatory
developments
Competitive
developments
Culture &
customs

Organizational
Objectives
Policies

Interpersonal
Individual
Authority

Procedure

Status

Organizational
Structures

Empathy

Systems

Persuasiveness

Age
Education
Job position
Personality
Risk Attitudes

Buyers

BUSINESS BUYING PROCESS

Problem Recognition
Someone
in
the
company recognizes a
problem or need that
can be met by acquiring
a good or service.

Supplier Search
Buyer tries to find the
best vendors

General Need Description

Company describes the
general
characteristics
and quantity of a needed
item.

Product Specification
Buying organization
decides on and specifies
the
best
technical
product characteristics
for a needed item.

Proposal Solicitation

Supplier Selection

Buyer invites qualified

suppliers to submit
proposals

Buyer reviews proposals

and selects a supplier or
suppliers.

Contd.
Order-routine specification
Buyer writes the final
order with the chosen
supplier (s), listing the
technical
specification,
quantity needed, expected
time of delivery, return
policies, and warranties.

Performance Review
Buyer rates its satisfaction
with suppliers , deciding
whether to continue ,
modify, or drop them.