Consumer Buying Behavior

 Define the consumer market and consumer

buyer behavior.
 Model of Consumer Behavior
 Characteristics Affecting Consumer Behavior
 Types of Buying Decision Behavior
 The Buyer Decision Process
 The Buyer Decision Process for New Products
 consumer markets, are including those individuals and
households who buy and consume goods and services for
their own personal use.
 Marketers need to understand who their customers. Once they know
who their customers are, they also need to know as much as
possible about how those customers behave.
We seek to answer the following questions:
1. How do consumers go about making a buying decision?
2. What influences their decision to buy one product in favor
of another?
3. What differences exist between consumers as individuals
and consumers as groups?
 Consumer buying behavior
 Consumer buying behavior refers to the buying behavior
of final consumers

 Consumers make many buying decisions every day. Most

large companies research consumer buying decisions in
great detail to answer questions about what consumers
buy, where they buy, how and how much they buy, when
they buy, and why they buy.

 The central question for marketers is: How do consumers respond to

various marketing efforts the company might use?
 The company that really understands how consumers
will respond to different product features, prices, and
advertising appeals has a great advantage over its
competitors.
 The starting point is the stimulus-response model of

buyer behavior shows that marketing and other stimuli

enter the consumer's "black box" and produce certain
responses.
Marketing other buyers’ black box Buyers’

stimuli stimuli response

Product choice
Buyer Buyer
Product Brand choice
Economy characte decision
Price Dealer choice
politics ristics process
Place & Purchase time
Technology
Promotion Purchase
Culture
amount

Fig3.1. consumer buying behavior model

 Consumer purchases are influenced strongly by
cultural, social, personal, and psychological
characteristics, as shown in Figure For the most part,
marketers cannot control such factors, but they must
take them into account.

 Consumer behavior is influenced by the buyer's

characteristics and by the buyer's decision process.
 Cultural Factors
 These factors exert the broadest and deepest influence on
consumer behavior which further includes culture, sub-
culture and social classes.

 Dhaqan: waa dhammaan qaabdhismeedyada bulsheed,

diimeed, iwm, bandhigyada aqooneed, faneed, iwm, ee
ummad-u-gaarah.

◦ Culture: it is the most basic cause of the person’s wants and

behavior.
 Sub-culture: sub-cultures are groups that display
behavior patterns sufficient to distinguish them from
other groups within the same culture. These patterns are
based on factors such as race, religion, and urban-rural
identification.

 Social classes: these are society’s relatively permanent

and ordered divisions whose members share similar
values, interests, income, wealth, education level and
behavior.
B. Social Factors
 A consumer’s behavior also is influenced by social

factors, such as group, family, and social roles and

status.
 a person’s behavior is influenced by many smaller groups.
Group that have a direct influence and to which a person
belongs are called membership groups.

 Marketers are interested in the roles and influences of
the husband, wife, and children on the purchase of
different products. It is important to establish exactly
who is making the final decision of what to buy.
 Role and status: person’s position in each group can
be defined in terms of both role and status.

 A role consists of the activities people are expected to

perform according to the persons around them.

 status- the general respect given to it by the society.

 People often buy products that show their status in

society.
 A buyers decision also are influenced by personal
characteristics such as the buyers age and life-cycle stage,
occupation, economic situation, life style, and personality and
self concept.
 Age and life cycle stage: people change the goods and services
they buy over their life time.
 Buying is also shaped by family life cycle- the stages through
which families might pass as they mature over time.
 Occupation: a person’s occupation affects his/her buying
decision. Blue collar workers tend to buy more rugged work
clothes whereas executives buy more business suits.
 Economic situation: marketers of income sensitive goods
watch trends in personal income.
 Lifestyle: it is a summary of how we live. It embraces our
activities, interests, opinions, and aspirations.
 Personality and self-concept:
 Personality combines a set of physical and mental

characteristics that reflect how a person looks, thinks, acts,

and feels.
 Personality is usually described in terms of general traits

such as self-confidence, dominance, sociability,

agreeableness etc.
 Self-concept refers to the way you see yourself. Also it is

the picture you think others have of you.

 D. Psychological Factors
 A person's buying choices are further influenced by four

major psychological factors: motivation, perception,

learning, and beliefs and attitudes.
I. Motivation
 A person has many needs at any given time. Some are

biological, arising from states of tension such as hunger,

thirst, or discomfort. Others are psychological, arising
from the need for recognition, esteem, or belonging
 A need becomes a motive when it is aroused to a

sufficient level of intensity. A motive (or drive) is a need

that is sufficiently pressing to direct the person to seek
satisfaction.
iii. Learning: a relatively permanent change in an
individual’s behavior arising from experience.
iv. A belief is a descriptive thought that a person has about
something. Marketers are interested in the belief that
people formulate about specific products because these
believes makeup product and brand images that affect
buying behavior.
 Buying behavior differs greatly for different products. More
complex decisions usually involve more buying participants and
more buyer deliberation.
Complex Buying Behavior
 consumers go through complex buying behavior when they

perceive significant brand differences and if products are

expensive, highly self-expressive, risky and purchased
infrequently.
 Because of these factors, there is high involvement of consumers

in the decision process.

 Marketers need to help buyers learn about product class attributes

and their relative importance.

 Dissonance Reducing Buying Behavior
 The situations observed in the complex buying behavior also
appear in this type of buying behavior with the exception of
insignificant difference among different brands. Hence, buyers
may shop around to learn what is available but buy relatively
quickly.
 They may respond primarily to a good price or convenience.
 After purchase, buyers might experience dissonance/discomfort
when they notice certain disadvantages of the purchased
product or hear favorable things about brands not purchased.
 To relieve consumers from this dissonance, marketers’ after
sales communication should provide evidence and support to
help consumers feel about the purchased brand.
 Habitual Buying Behavior- low involvement of consumers
 In habitual buying behavior, consumes’ low involvement and
little brand differences exist. Consumers simply go to the store
and reach for a brand especially for low cost and frequently
purchased products.
 Consumers passively read magazines and watch TV to receive
information. buyers are not highly committed to any brand. In
advertisement marketers need to use descriptions
advertisements and visual symbols because they can be
remembered easily and associated with the brand. TV is more
effective than print media.
Variety Seeking Buying Behavior- low involvement of
consumers
 Consumers choose the brand without much evaluation, or the

evaluation of the product is during consumption. The next time

buyers seek another brand not because of dissatisfaction but
simply to try something different.
Types of Buying Decision Behavior
3.1.4. The Buying Decision Process
 The buying process starts long before actual purchase and
continues long after purchase. For most purchases buyers pass
through five stages.

1. Need Recognition/Problem Identification

 It is the first stage in which the buyer recognizes a problem.

The need can be triggered or activated by internal stimuli

(hungry and thirsty) or external stimuli (advertising).
2. Information Search
 This is a stage in which the consumer is generated to search for
information. If the buyer’s need is strong they undertake an
information search. The information may be obtained from:
◦ Personal sources e.g. family, friends, acquaintances
◦ Commercial sources e.g. advertising, sales people, dealers, packages
◦ Public sources e.g. mass media, consumer rating organization
◦ Experimental sources e.g. handling, examining or using the product
3.Evaluation of Alternatives
 Buyers use the information they obtained from various sources to
evaluate alternative brands in the choice set and they rank brands
according to some specifications. For example, may consider
attributes like warranty, operating cost, style and price.
4.Purchase Decision
 It is actually buying the product. Generally the consumers’

purchase decision will be to buy the most preferred brand.

5. Post Purchase Decision
 Buyers take further actions after purchase based on previous

satisfaction level. The relationship between buyers’ expectation

and products’ perceived performance determines the buyers’
satisfaction level. Buyers base their expectation on the information
they receive.
3.1.5. The adoption process for new products
 Consumers learn about products for the first time and make

decisions on whether to adopt them.

 Adoption process is defined as the mental process which

buyers go through from the first learning about an innovation

to final adoption.
Stages in the adoption process
 New products move through a process before they are adopted by
the market.
 Consumers pass five stages to adopt a new product.
 Awareness Interest Evaluation
 Trial Adoption
 Awareness: consumers become aware of the new
product but lacks information about it.
 Interest: consumers seek information to know about

the new product.

 Evaluation: consumers consider whether trying the

new product makes sense.

 Trial: the consumers try the new product in a small

scale to improve their estimate of its value.

 Adoption: consumers decide to make a full and regular

use of the product.