Unit 5

Consumer Buyer Behavior

Book Code – MB0030
Dr. Smita Choudhary

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 Contents
• Introduction
• Characteristics affecting consumer behavior
• Types of buying decision behavior: Henry Assael Model
• Consumer buying decision process
• Buyer decision process for new products
• Buying motives
• Buyer behavior models

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 Introduction
• Consumers are individuals, households or businesses who use
the products.
• The characteristics of consumers are different in different
countries.
• Hence, marketers must understand the needs and buying
behavior of consumers before developing product and marketing
program.

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 Learning Objectives
After studying this unit, you will be able to
• Indentify the characteristics that affect consumer behavior.
• Explain different types of buyer behavior
• Analyze the consumer decision making process
• Discuss the consumer decision process for new products.
• Examine the buying motives and behavioral models

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 Characteristics Affecting Consumer Behavior

• Cultural, social, personal and psychological factors affect consumer

behavior. These factors are beyond the control of the company.
I. Cultural factors
1. Culture – It is a mix of customs, beliefs and values of consumers of
a particular country.
2. Subcultures – Subcultures are part of culture consisting of
geographic regions, religions, nationalities and racial groups. The
values of these groups are different from each other.
3. Social class – These are permanent groups in the society whose
members have common likings. As per the McKinsey consumer
report, Indian consumers can be classified into five categories. They
are deprived, aspires, seekers, strivers and global Indians

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a) Deprives – Deprived are people whose annual income is less than Rs.
90,000. This group is also known as below poverty line. They earn their
living through seasonal work. They perform less skilled or semi skilled
work.
b) Aspires – These are families whose annual income is between Rs. 90,000
to Rs. 200,000. This group consists of small shop keepers, industrial
workers and small farmers.
c) Seekers – These are families whose annual income is between Rs.
200,000 to Rs. 500,000. This group consists of fresh workers, middle level
employees, government employees and business people.
d) Strivers – The annual income of this group is between Rs. 500,000 to Rs.
1,000,000. This group contains business people, large farmers, senior
government officials and professionals. They lead the consumption
growth in India.
e) Global Indians – The annual income of this group more than Rs.
1,000,000. It consists of senior government officials, professionals,
business people and top business executives. They purchase
international brands and take international food.

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II Social factors
• Human beings are social animals. They live and interact with each other.
• Hence, they are influenced by each other. Marketers try to find such
influential persons or groups of consumer.
• These influential groups are classified into two main groups namely
reference groups and family.
• Reference groups - “Reference groups are groups that people refer to
when evaluating their own qualities, circumstances, attitudes, values and
behaviors.”
---- William Thompson and Joseph Hickey
• Family – Indian culture gives high importance to family. People discuss
with their families before purchasing any valuable item. Therefore,
companies use either whole family or kids in their promotional programs.

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III Personal factors

• Individual factors like age, occupation, lifestyle and personality affect the
consumer decision making.
• Personality is the image of people’s traits.
• These traits that form personality are self confidence, dominance,
autonomy, defensiveness, adaptability and aggressiveness.
• Many companies use these concepts in their marketing communication.

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• Psychological factors
• Motivation
• Abraham Maslow’s “Need Hierarchy Theory”

Self

Esteem

Social

Safety

Physiological

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i. Physiological needs – These are essential for supporting life. The main
physiological needs are food, water, shelter, sleep, medicine, etc.
Maslow believed that until these basic needs are not satisfied, no other
motivating factor will work.
ii. Security or safety needs – These are the needs to be free of physical
danger and free of the fear of losing a job, property, food or shelter and
the protection against emotional harm.
iii. Social needs – These needs include need for affection, acceptance and
friendship.
iv. Esteem needs – These needs appear after social needs are satisfied.
These needs include need for power, prestige, status and self-
confidence.
v. Need for self-actualization – It is the highest need in the hierarchy. It is
the power to become what one is capable of becoming. It includes
growth, achieving one’s potential and self-fulfillment.

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Perception
• It is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting and organizing sensory
information.
• Marketers conduct a research on consumer profile and communicates the product
or service messages through radio, demo or television.
• The consumers see, hear and experience the product or service and develop an
image in the mind.
• The message passed by the company passes through three different selection
procedures.
– Selective attention: It is the habit of people to analyze the information
completely. They form the perception about the product or service only after
complete analysis. This group is very difficult to handle as they always want
more information.
– Selective distortion: It is the experience where consumers will have tendency
to interpret the information as they like it.
– Selective retention: It is the concept where the consumer will not remember
all the points communicated by the company. He/she may remember the
good points and forget the negative points of the company.

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 Types of Buying Decision Behavior: Henry
Assael Model
High Involvement Low Involvement

Significant Complex buying Variety seeking

difference between behavior buying behavior
brands

Few differences Dissonance Habitual buying

between brands reducing buying behavior
behavior

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Complex buying behavior
• Customers with complex buying behavior are highly involved in the purchase
of the product or service.
• The difference between the brands is also very high.
• The marketer should first develop the belief about the brand, provide
the information and differentiate the company brand from others.
Dissonance reducing buying behavior
• This is the behavior of customers when there is high involvement in
product purchase but there are very few differences between brands.
• The disadvantage of this behavior is that customer will show disagreement
after purchasing the product which is very difficult to control.

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 Variety seeking buying behavior
• This is the behavior of consumers when there are major differences between
the brands but the involvement in purchasing is low.
• In this situation the marketer should take following steps:
– The market leader should encourage customers to buy repeatedly.
– Make the product available and visible to customer in shopping places.
– Firms that are not market leaders should follow sales promotion techniques to
encourage customers to buy the product.
Habitual buying behavior
• It is the behavior of customers when there is low involvement in purchase and
few differences between the brands.
• In this situation the marketer should follow these strategies:
– Use price and sales promotion to encourage product trial.
– Use more visual elements than words in the advertisement.
– Television is a better media for this type of products.

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Consumer Buying Decision Process
1. Need recognition

2. Information search

3. Evaluation of alternatives

4. Purchase decisions

5. Post purchase decisions

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1. Need recognition
• A customer is guided by two types of stimuli – internal
stimuli and external stimuli.
• The examples of internal stimuli are customer’s desire,
attitude or perception.
• The examples of external stimuli is advertising.
• Both stimuli help the customers to understand the need for
the product.
• Marketer must understand the needs of the customer and
highlight those needs in the communication strategy.

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 2. Information search
• After identifying his needs, the customer searches for information
about the product, place, price and point of purchase.
• This information can be collected from
– Personal sources: Family, friends and neighbors
– Commercial sources: Advertising, sales people, dealers, packaging
and displays
– Public sources: Mass media and consumer rating agencies
– Experiential sources: Demonstration, examining the product
• At this stage, the marketer should provide detailed information about
the product.
• The marketing communication should focus on the attributes and
advantages of the product to build a positive image of the product.

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3. Evaluation of alternatives
• At this stage the consumer compares different brands
on attributes which he/she requires in the product.
• Normally, the Indian consumer evaluates the product
on the basis of the following factors:
– Price
– Features
– Availability
– Quality
– Durability
• Now, the marketer should provide advertisements that
compare different brands.
• The advertisement should be different for different
segments and focus on the attributes according to the
segment.

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4. Purchase decision
• At this stage, the consumer buys the brand that he thinks is the best.
• In India, affordability has a very important role at this stage.
5. Post purchase behavior
When consumers use the product they experience some satisfaction
and some dissatisfaction.
The consumer takes some actions after purchasing the product which
are of interest to the marketer.
• If the performance of the product is not as expected, it
causes dissatisfaction to the consumer.
• Marketers should notice how consumer uses and throws away
the product.
• For durable goods, the Indian consumer wants some resale value also.

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Buyer Decision Process for New Products

Awareness

Interest

Evaluation

Trial

Adoption
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• There is a difference in decision making of buyers
for existing products and new products.
• In existing product decision making, the buyer
searches for information and evaluates it. But in
new products this option is not available.
• “Adoption is the mental process through which an
individual passes from first hearing about an
innovation to final adoption”
---- Philip Kotler
• The adoption process can be explained as follows:

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Adoption Process
• Awareness: The consumer becomes aware of the product but does
not have proper information about it.
• Interest: At this stage, the consumer shows interest to collect
information about the product.
• Evaluation: After collecting the information, the consumer analyzes
how the new product is better than the existing products or
substitutes and decides whether to buy or not.
• Trial: The consumer tries the product on a small scale to improve his
views about the product.
• Adoption: At this stage, the consumer decides to make full and regular
use of the product.

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 Adoption rate
• Consumer innovators (2.5%): These are consumers who adopt any new product that
enters the market. These people are very status conscious. For such consumers, marketers
must highlight how the new product will add to the esteem of the consumer.
• Early adopters (13.5%): Such consumers observe the advantages of the new product
and when the price of the product falls and becomes affordable they buy the product.
• Early majority (34%): This group of customers are attracted towards the benefits of the
product. They make sure that there are no technical or general problems with the product.
• Late majority (34%): This group of customers wants quality products at affordable
prices.
• Laggards (16%): Such customers are traditional and price conscious. They take a lot of
time to adopt the product.

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 Buying Motives
• ‘The thoughts, feelings, emotions and instincts that
encourages customer to buy a product are known as buying
motives.’

• “Buying motives are those influences or considerations

which provide the impulse to buy, induce action and
determine choice in the purchase of goods and services.”
---- Prof D.J. Duncan

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 Classification of Buying Motives

Buying Motives

Product Buying Motives Patronage Motives

Emotional product Emotional patronage

buying motive buying motive

Rational product Rational patronage

buying motive buying motive

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1. Product buying motives
• These are influences and reasons that encourage a buyer to select a particular
product over other product.
• The influence or reason may be design, shape, dimension, size, color, packaging,
etc.
• Product buying motives are classified as
– Emotional product buying motive
– Rational product buying motive

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a) Emotional product buying motives
• Here, the buyer purchases a product without thinking logically and carefully. The
buyer takes decision on the basis of emotions.

• The factors that affect the emotional product buying motives are
– Costumer’s pride is associated with the product.
– Customer tries to copy from others.
– Purchase goods for affection of family member.
– Product that provide comfort are purchased on emotions.
– Sexually appealing products are purchased on emotions.
– Recreational, hunger or habitual products are purchased emotionally.
– Products that provide uniqueness or individuality.

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b) Rational product buying motives
• When buyers understand the advantages and disadvantages of purchasing a
product and then takes a decision, it is known as rational product buying motive.
• For taking rational decisions, the buyer takes following factors into consideration:
– The safety or security features of the product.
– The value for money provided by the product.
– Suitability and utility of the product.
– Durability of the product
– Convenience of the product

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2. Patronage buying motives
• These are reasons that make a buyer favor a particular shop in
preference to other shops while buying a product.
• Patronage buying motives are classified into two categories
– Emotional patronage buying motives
– Rational patronage buying motives

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a) Emotional patronage buying motives
• These are favoring a particular shop for purchase without
any logical thinking or reason.
• The factors that affect emotional patronage buying motives
are:
– Appearance of the shop
– Visual merchandising in the shop
– Reference groups influence about a particular shop
– Shopping in a big mall is a prestige issue.
– Copying other reference groups’ members

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b) Rational patronage buying motives
• These motives arise after the buyer analyzes the shop
carefully and provides the information to reference group
members.
• Rational patronage buying motives include the following:
– Convenience of the shop to the buyers.
– Value for money provided by the shops.
– Financial schemes and facilities provided by the shop.
– Availability of wide range of goods.
– Reputation of the shop in the area.
– Services provided by the sales executives.

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 Buyer Behavior Models
• The affect of social science on buyer behavior has encouraged
marketing experts to propose some models for explaining
buyer behavior.
• They include
– The economic model
– The learning model
– The psychoanalytical model
– Sociological model

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1) The Economic Model
• According to the economic model of buyer behavior, the buyer is a logical
man and his buying decisions are controlled by the concept of utility.
• When the buyer has some purchasing power, some needs to be fulfilled
and some products to choose from, he will distribute the amount over
the products in a very rational manner to maximize the utility or benefits.

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2) The Learning Model
• The learning model takes ideas from Ivan Pavlov’s stimulus
response theory.
• According to this model buyer behavior can be influenced by
controlling the drives, stimuli and responses of the buyer.
• The model is based on man’s ability at learning, forgetting and
discriminating.
• The stimulus response theory states that a relationship develops
between the behavior producing stimulus and a behavior response
due to conditioning of behavior and formation of habits.
• In terms of consumer behavior, an advertisement would be a
stimulus and purchase would be a response.

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Learning process
• According to the stimulus-response theory, learning depends on drive,
cue (stimulus), response and reinforcement.
Cue:
Cue or stimulus is any object in the environment recognized by
the individual.
• The marketing people try to find out and create a cue that is important to drive
stimulus or get favorable responses.
Response
• Response is an answer to a drive or cue. Response includes attitudes, familiarity,
and perception.
• Response may be generalized or discriminatory.

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Reinforcement
• Reinforcement or rewards means decrease in drive and
stimulus.
• Reinforcement is defined as events that increase the
possibility of occurrence of responses.
• When consumption of a product leads to satisfaction of need,
there is reinforcement.
• The change in behavior that increases the possibility of an act
being repeated is known as learning.
• Reinforcement increases the rapidity (speed) and vigor
(energy) of learning.

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3) The Psychoanalytical Model

• This model takes ideas from Freudian psychology.

• This model states that the individual consumer has some deep motives
that drive him to make certain buying decisions.
• The buyer has some hidden fears, hidden desires and subjective longings
(personal wishes ).
• His buying action can be affected by appealing to these desires.
• The psychoanalytical theory is credited to the work of noted psychologist
Sigmund Freud.
• Freud introduced personality as a motivating factor in human behavior.
• According to this theory, the mental framework of a human being consists
of three elements, namely:

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• The id or the instinctive, pleasure seeking element: It is the group of
inborn desires that a man is born with. It includes the aggressive,
destructive and sexual drives of man.
• The superego or the internal filter: It presents to the individual the
behavioral expectations of society.
• The ego or the control device that maintains a balance between the id
and the superego.

The theory believes that a person is not able to satisfy all his needs within the
boundaries of the society. These unsatisfied needs create tensions in an
individual which have to be taken care of.

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4) The Sociological Model
• This model believes that an individual is influenced by society and close
groups and social classes. The buying decisions of individuals are not
totally based on utility, he has a desire to follow the environment.
5) The Nicosia Model
• The Nicosia Model and the Howard Sheth Model belong to the category of
systems model, where a human being is analyzed as a system with stimuli
as the input to the system and behavior as the output of the system.
• The Nicosia model of buyer behavior was proposed by Francesco Nicosia,
an expert in consumer behavior and motivation, in 1966.

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