UNIT I (b)

Consumer Buying Process

• Consumer buying process consists of sequential steps the consumer

follows to arrive at the final buying decisions.
• Mostly, consumers follow a typical buying process. Marketer must know
how consumers reach the final decision to buy the product.
•  Marketers need to focus on ways to keep buyers engaged no matter what
step they are at. Since buyers are looking for valuable information the best
way for marketers to reach these buyers is by creating informative and
engaging content that will educate buyers.
• By creating rich content marketers can establish credibility and trust as
well as build relationships with buyers

• According to Philip Kotler, the typical buying process involves five stages
the consumer passes through described as under:
Process
1. Problem Identification:

• This step is also known as recognizing of unmet need. The need is a source
or force of buying behavior.
• Buying problem arises only when there is unmet need or problem is
recognized. Need or problem compels an individual to act or to buy the
product.
• Buyer senses a difference between his actual state (physical and mental)
and a desired state. The need can be triggered by internal or external
stimuli. Internal stimuli include basic or normal needs – hunger, thirst, or
comfort; while external stimuli include external forces, for instance, when
an individual watch a new brand car, he desires to buy it.
• Marketer must identify the circumstances that trigger a particular need.
He can collect information from a number of consumers regarding how
stimuli spark an interest in products.
• Based on information, he can develop marketing strategies to trigger
consumer interest.
2. Information Search:
• Interested consumer will try to seek information. Now, he will read
newspapers and magazines, watch television, visit showroom or dealer,
contact salesman, discuss with friends and relatives, and try all the
possible sources of information.
• Mostly, the consumer can try one or more of following sources of
information:
i. Personal Sources:
• They may include family members, friends, package, colleagues, and
relatives.
ii. Commercial Sources:
• Advertising, salesmen, dealers, package, trade show, display, and
exhibition are dominant commercial sources.
iii. Public Sources:
• Mass media (radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, cinema, etc.), consumer-
rating agencies, etc., are main public sources.
iv. Experimental Sources:
• They include handling, examining, testing, or using the product.
• Selection of sources depends upon personal characteristics, types of
products, and capacity and reliability of sources.
• Each information source performs different functions in influencing buying
decision.
• By gathering information from relevant sources, the consumer can learn
about different products and brands available in the market.

3. Evaluation of Alternatives:

• In the former stage, the consumer has collected information about certain
brands. Now, he undergoes evaluation of brands. He cannot buy all of
them.
• Normally, he selects the best one, the brand that offers maximum
satisfaction. Here, he evaluates competitive brands to judge which one is
the best, the most attractive.
• Evaluation calls for evaluating various alternatives with certain choice
criteria.
• Following criteria are considered while evaluating alternatives:

i. Benefits offered by the brands

ii. Qualities, features or attributes, and performance
iii. Price changed by various brands
iv. History of brands
v. Popularity, image or reputation of brands
vi. Product-related services offered by the brands, such as after-sales services,
warrantee, and free installation
vii. Availability of brands and dealer rating.

• The brand that meets most of the above conditions reasonably is more likely
to be preferred. Marketer should highlights superior features of his brand.
Some companies also advertise comparative table to help consumers
evaluate various brands.
• For example, Yamaha, Maruti, and Hyundai provide comparative table in
newspapers to show how the bike/car is superior to other brands.
4. Purchase Decision:

• This is the stage when the consumer prefers one, the most promising
band, out of several brands. The former stage helps consumers evaluate
various brands in the choice set. The brand that offers maximum benefits
or satisfaction is preferred.
• Simply, the most attractive brand, that can offer more benefits in relation
to price paid, is selected by comparing one brand with others. Comparison
shows superiority/inferiority of the brands.
• Now, consumer makes up his mind to purchase the most preferred brand.
However, three factors further affect whether buying intension result into
actual purchase. More clearly, the consumer’ decision to avoid, modify, or
postpone a purchase decision is influenced by these factors.
• The first factor is attitudes of others. The impact of other persons’
attitudes depends on degree of their negative attitudes toward the
consumer’s preferred brand, and consumer’s degree of compliance with
other persons’ wishes.
• The second factor is unanticipated situational factors. Purchase intension may
change due to certain unanticipated situational factors like price hike, loss of
job, family income, major medical expenses, non-availability of the preferred
brand, or such similar factors.
• The third and the last factor is consumer’s perceived risk. Degree of risk
depends on price, attribute uncertainty, entry of a new superior product, and
his self-confidence.
5. Post-purchase Decisions:
• Consumer buys the product with certain expectations. Though he decides very
systematically, there is no guarantee of a complete satisfaction.
• There is always possibility of variation between the expected level of
satisfaction and the actual satisfaction. His subsequent behaviour is influenced
by degree of satisfaction/dissatisfaction.

Marketer must monitor the post-purchase experience of the buyers that

includes:
• a. Post-purchase Satisfaction
• b. Post-purchase Action
• c. Post-purchase Use and Disposal
1. Post-purchase Satisfaction:

• Actual satisfaction may not be equal to the expected one. He may find
some problems or defects in the product while using. It is the matter of
interest for marketer to know whether consumer is highly satisfied,
somewhat satisfied, or dissatisfied.
• Consumer’s satisfaction is the function of the relationship between
expected/perceived performance (expectations) and actual performance.
• The larger the gap between expectations and performance, the greater
the consumer’s dissatisfaction will be. The consumer is satisfied when
product meets or exceeds all the expectations and vice versa. If he is
satisfied, he buys the product again, and talks favourably.
• In order to minimize the gap between expectations and performance, the
seller must not exaggerate the product benefits; must make truthful claim
of product’s likely performance.
2. Post-purchase Action:

• Obviously, level of the consumer’s satisfaction with the product affects his
subsequent behaviour/action. If he is satisfied reasonably, he purchases
the product again, and talks favourably to family members, friends,
relatives, and co-workers.
• That is why marketer says: Our best advertisement is a satisfied consumer.
Quite opposite to it, dissatisfied consumer responds differently. He may
abandon product, complain to the company for compensation, resort to
the court and warn other organisations, friends, relatives and co-workers
to avoid product.
• The task of marketer consists of taking certain steps to minimize amount
of consumer’s post-purchase dissatisfaction.
3. Post-purchase Use and Disposal:
• Marketer should also monitor how the consumers use and dispose the
product. Such information can be a very good guideline for the marketer.
Marketer can learn possible problems and opportunities relating with the
product.
• Thus, buying process is a journey from problem recognition to reaction of
buyers. The entire process is very meaningful to the seller. The process
reflects most of factors affecting consumers. Marketer, therefore, must
study the buying process from consumer’s viewpoint. 
Factors influencing Buying Process
 Cultural Factors
• Kotler observed that human behaviour is largely the result of a learning
process and as such individuals grow up learning a set of values, perceptions,
preferences and behaviour patterns as the result of socialisation both within
the family and a series of other key institutions.
• From this we develop a set of values, which determine and drive
behavioural patterns to a very large extent.
• Cultural factors consist of a) Culture, b) Sub culture and c) Social class.
a) Culture:
• Culture is the most fundamental determinant of a person’s want and
behaviour. The growing child acquires a set of values, perception preferences
and behaviours through his or her family and other key institutions.
• Culture influences considerably the pattern of consumption and the pattern
of decision-making.
• Marketers have to explore the cultural forces and have to frame marketing
strategies for each category of culture separately to push up the sales of
their products or services.
• Eg-differences between Hindi accents and choice of words of various
places like Mumbai, Delhi or Bihar.

b) Sub-Culture:
• Each culture consists of smaller sub-cultures that provide more specific
identification and socialisation for their members.
• Sub-culture refers to a set of beliefs shared by a subgroup of the main
culture, which include nationalities, religions, racial groups and geographic
regions.
• Many sub-Cultures make up important market segments and marketers
have to design products and marketing programs tailored to their needs.
• For example, Indians are normally seen as orthodox, conservative people,
but rich, up-market youths today enjoy night-outs.
• Another example is that, the urban educated or upper class exhibits more
trace of individualism although Indian culture is mostly collective in
nature.
c) Social class:

• Consumer behaviour is determined by the social class to which they

belong. The classification of socioeconomic groups is known as Socio-
Economic Classification (SEC).
• Social class is relatively a permanent and ordered division in a society
whose members share similar value, interest and behaviour. Social class is
not determined by a single factor, such as income but it is measured as a
combination of various factors, such as income, occupation, education,
authority, power, property, ownership, life styles, consumption, pattern
etc.
• There are three different social classes in our society. They are upper class,
middle class and lower class. These three social classes differ in their
buying behaviour.
• Upper class consumers want high-class goods to maintain their status in
the society. Middle class consumers purchase carefully and collect
information to compare different producers in the same line and lower
class consumers buy on impulse.
 Social Factors
• Man is a social animal. Hence, our behaviour patterns, likes and dislikes are
influenced by the people around us to a great extent.
• We always seek confirmation from the people around us and seldom do
things that are not socially acceptable.
• The social factors influencing consumer behaviour are
a) Family, b) Reference Groups, c) Roles and status.

1. Family
• The family influence on the buying behaviour of a member may be found in
two ways
i) The family influence on the individual personality, characteristics, attitudes and
evaluation criteria and
ii) The influence on the decision-making process involved in the purchase of
goods and services. In India, the head of the family may alone or jointly with
his wife decides the purchase. So marketers should study the role and the
relative influence of the husband, wife and children in the purchase of goods
and services.
• An individual normally lives through two families:
 Family of orientation:
• This is the family in which a person takes birth. The influences of parents
and individual’s upbringing have a strong effect on the buying habits. For
instance, an individual coming form an orthodox Tamil or Gujarati
vegetarian family may not consume meat or egg even though she may
appreciate its nutritional values.
 Family of procreation:
• This is the family formed by an individual with his or her spouse and
children. Normally, after marriage, an individual’s purchasing habits and
priorities change under the influence of spouse. As the marriage gets
older, the people usually settle in certain roles. For instance, a father
normally takes decisions on investment whereas the mother takes
decision on health of children.
EXAMPLE- The family may well adopt different roles according to the
decision-making stage. At the problem recognition stage of, for example,
the need for new shoes for the children, the children themselves may be
the main contributors.
• The mother may then decide what type of shoes should be bought, and
the father may be the one who takes the children to buy the shoes. It is
reasonable to suppose that the main user of the product might be
important in the initial stages, with perhaps joint decision making at the
final purchase.

b) Reference group:
• A group is two or more persons who share a set of norms and whose
relationship makes their behaviour interdependent. A reference group is a
group of people with whom an individual associates. It is a group of
people who strongly influence a person’s attitudes values and behaviour
directly or indirectly. 
• The various reference groups are:
i) Membership or contractual groups:
• They are those groups to which the person belongs, and interacts. These
groups have a direct influence on their member’s behaviour.
ii) Primary or normative groups:
• They refer to groups of friends, family members, neighbours co-workers
etc whom we see most often. In this case, there is fairly continuous or
regular, but informal interaction with cohesiveness and mutual
participation, which result in similar beliefs and behaviour within the
group.
iii) Secondary groups:
• They include religious groups, professional groups etc, which are
composed of people whom we see occasionally. These groups are less
influential in shaping attitudes and controlling behaviour but can exert
influence on behaviour within the purview of the subject of mutual
interest. For example, you can be member of a literary club where you
can discuss on mutually interesting subjects.
iv) Aspiration group:
• These are group to which a person would like to join as member. These
groups can be very powerful in influencing behaviour because the
individual will often adopt the behaviour of the aspirational group in the
hopes of being accepted as a member.
• For example, a humble office worker may dream of one day having the
designation to be present in the company boardroom.
v) Dissociative or avoidance groups:
• These are groups whose value an individual rejects and the individual does
not want to be associated with.

c) Roles and status:

• A person participates in many groups like family, clubs, and organisations.
The person’s position in each group can be defined in tern of role and
status. A role consists of the activities that a person is expected to
perform. Each role carries a status. People choose products that
communicate their role and status in society. Marketers must be aware of
the status symbol potential of products and brands.
 Personal factors
a) Age:
• Age of a person is one of the important personal factors influencing buyer
behaviour. People buy different products at their different stages of cycle.
Their taste, preference, etc also change with change in life cycle.

b) Occupation:
• Occupation or profession of a person influences his buying behaviour. The
life styles and buying considerations and decisions differ widely according
to the nature of the occupation. For instance, the buying of a doctor can
be easily differentiated from that of a lawyer, teacher, clerk businessman,
landlord, etc. So, the marketing managers have to design different
marketing strategies suit the buying motives of different occupational
groups.
c) Income:
• Income level of people is another factor which can exert influence in
shaping the consumption pattern. Income is an important source of
purchasing power. So, buying pattern of people differs with different levels
of income.

d) Life Style:
• Life style to a person’s pattern or way of living as expressed in his activity,
interests and opinions that portrays the “whole person” interacting with
the environment. Marketing managers have to design different marketing
strategies to suit the life styles of the consumers.
 Psychological Factors
• Four basic psychological factors underlie the decisions consumers make
when they spend:

1. Motivation and Need

• Needs motivate buying behaviour. You buy food when you're hungry,
protective gear to feel safe, brand-name clothing to look stylish,
education to enable accomplishment and self-improvement to reach self-
actualization
• . The more basic the need, the greater the priority it assumes in driving
consumers to fulfill it.
• If a company can convince a consumer that their product or service meets
one of his motivating drives, he can be convinced into buying the product.
• Advertising can help associate a product with need fulfillment.
2. Perception, Attention, Distortion and Retention
• The selective way in which the human mind views the world around
it and the information that reaches it forms the basis of perception.
• To get attention, companies use shock tactics, surprise, humor or
any device that makes people watch and listen.
• Once they get consumers' attention, they must induce them to
remember the message without filtering it through the "distortion
field" of their outlooks and mindsets.
• Repetition helps make your information stick. That simple concept
helps explain how often you see the same ad and how many times it
repeats an important part of its message, such as the phone number
to call in a direct-response TV spot.
3. Learning and Conditioning
• Consumers can gain decision-making information from advertising,
especially about products in categories beyond their experience.
• If a commercial message convinces consumers to try a product but
their post-purchase experiences prove dissatisfying, they learn to
avoid that product, even if it changes enough to negate their prior
dissatisfaction.
• In response, the advertiser must try to teach consumers another
message about the product, one that removes prior conditioning
in favour of new information.
• Conditioning also explains how rewards, gifts with purchases train
consumers to prefer one product in a category over another.
4. Beliefs and Attitudes
• What consumers believe about a seller, product or service
affects whether and what they buy. These attitudes can
persist even when the situations that produce them change.
• If a company appears to share consumer values, it may
attract more business. If consumers perceive a product as
beneficial or its competition as harmful, they move toward
one and avoid the other.
• Advertising strives to position products so they appear
associated with positive traits and to avoid beliefs that
interfere with the products' ability to attract buyers.