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Chapter 5

Consumer Markets and Buyer Behavior

Dr. Yousra Allam

 Consumers around the world vary tremendously in age, income,
education level and tastes

• Consumer Buyer Behavior: the buying behavior of final consumers –

individuals and households that buy goods and services for personal
consumption

• Consumer market: all the individuals and households that buy or

acquire goods and services for personal consumption

Learning about the whys behind consumer buying behavior is not so easy.
Often, consumers themselves don’t know exactly what influences their purchases
Characteristics Affecting Consumer
Behavior:
Cultural Social Personal Psychological

Culture Groups & Social Age & lifecycle Motivation

Networks stage
Perception
Subculture Family Occupation

Social Class Roles & Status Economic

Learning Buyer
situation Beliefs and
attitudes
Personality &
Self-concept
Cultural factors:
• Culture:
o The set of basic values, perceptions, wants and behaviors learned by a
member of society from family and other significant institutions
o Marketers are always trying to spot cultural shifts so as to discover new
products that might be wanted
o Ex: the cultural shift toward greater concern about health & fitness
• Subculture:
o A group of people with shared value systems based on common life
experiences and situations
o Ex: nationalities, religions, geographic regions
Cultural factors: Cont’
• Social Class:
o Relatively permanent and ordered divisions in a society whose members
share similar values, interests and behaviors.
o Social class is not determined by a single factor, such as income, but is
measured as a combination of occupation, income, education, wealth and
other variables
o Marketers are interested in social class because people within a given social
class tend to exhibit similar buying behavior
Characteristics Affecting Consumer
Behavior:
Cultural Social Personal Psychological

Culture Groups & Social Age & lifecycle Motivation

Networks stage
Perception
Subculture Family Occupation

Social Class Roles & Status Economic

Learning Buyer
situation Beliefs and
attitudes
Personality &
Self-concept
Social Factors:
Consumer behavior is also influenced by social factors:
• Groups and Social Networks:
o Group: two or more people who interact to accomplish individual or mutual goals
o Word-of-mouth influence:
 The impact of the personal words and recommendations of trusted friends, family, associates and other
consumers on buying behavior.
 Most word-of-mouth influence happens naturally
o Opinion Leader:
 A person within a reference group, who because of special skills, knowledge, personality or other
characteristics, exerts social influence on others.
 Some experts call this group the influential or leading adopters
 Marketers try to identify opinion leaders for their products and direct marketing efforts toward them
 “Brand ambassadors” they just spread the word about a company’s products
o Online Social Networks: online communities where people socialize or exchange info or
opinions. Ex: blogs, social media sites, shopping sites like Amazon
Social Factors: Cont’
• Family:
o Family members can strongly influence buyer behavior
o Marketers are interested in the roles and influence of the husband, wife and
children on the purchase of different products and services
o The wife is considered the main purchasing agent for the family in the areas
of food, household products and clothing
• Roles and Status:
o A role consists of the activities people are expected to perform according to
the people around them
o People usually choose products appropriate to their roles and status
Characteristics Affecting Consumer
Behavior:
Cultural Social Personal Psychological

Culture Groups & Social Age & lifecycle Motivation

Networks stage
Perception
Subculture Family Occupation

Social Class Roles & Status Economic

Learning Buyer
situation Beliefs and
attitudes
Personality &
Self-concept
Personal Factors:
A buyer’s decisions also are influenced by personal characteristics, such
as the buyer’s occupation, age, stage, economic situation, lifestyle,
personality and self-concept
• Occupation: a person’s occupation affects the goods and services
bought
• Age and life stage:
o People change the goods and services they buy over their lifetimes. Ex: tastes
of food, clothes and furniture
o Buying is also shaped by the stage of the family life cycle
Personal Factors: Cont’
• Economic Situation:
o A person’s economic situation will affect his/her store and product choices.
o Marketers watch trends in spending, personal income, savings, and interest
rates
• Lifestyle:
o A person’s pattern of living as expressed in his/her psychographics
o It involves measuring consumers major AIO dimensions:
 Activities: work, hobbies, shopping, sports and social events
 Interests: food, fashion, family, recreation
 Opinions: about themselves, social issues, business and products
o Consumers do not just buy products; they buy the values and lifestyles those
products represent
Personal Factors: Cont’
• Personality and Self-Concept:
o Personality is usually described in terms of traits, such as self-confidence,
dominance, sociability, autonomy, defensiveness, adaptability and
aggressiveness
o Personality can be useful in analyzing consumer behavior for certain product
or brand choices
o Brand personality: the specific mix of human traits that may be attributed to a
particular brand
o Many marketers use a concept related to personality: a person’s self-concept
“self-image”
Characteristics Affecting Consumer
Behavior:
Cultural Social Personal Psychological

Culture Groups & Social Age & lifecycle Motivation

Networks stage
Perception
Subculture Family Occupation

Social Class Roles & Status Economic

Learning Buyer
situation Beliefs and
attitudes
Personality &
Self-concept
Psychological Factors:
A person’s buying choices are further influenced by four major
psychological factors: motivation, perception, learning, and beliefs and
attitudes.
• Motivation:
o A person has many needs at any given time
o Some are biological arising from states of tension such as hunger or discomfort
o Others are psychological, arising from the need for recognition, esteem or
belonging
o A need becomes a motive when it is aroused to a sufficient level of intensity
o A motive (or drive) is a need that is sufficiently pressing to direct the person to
seek satisfaction
Psychological Factors: Cont’
Self-
Abraham Maslow sought to explain Actualization
why people are driven by particular needs
needs at particular times
Esteem
Needs
Social Needs
Sense of belonging, love
Safety Needs
Security, Protection
Physiological Needs
Hunger, thirst
Psychological Factors:
• Perception:
o The process by which people select, organize and interpret information to form a meaningful
picture of the world
o Consumers worry that they will be affected by marketing messages without even knowing it:
subliminal advertising
• Learning: changes in an individual’s behavior arising from experience.
When people act, they learn
• Belief:
o Through doing and learning, people acquire beliefs and attitudes which influence their buying
behavior
o A descriptive thought that a person holds about something
• Attitude:
o People have attitude regarding religion, politics, clothes, music, food & almost everything
o It is a person’s consistently favorable or unfavorable evaluations, feelings, and tendencies toward
an object or idea.
o Attitudes are difficult to change. Thus, a company should always try to fit its products into existing
The Buying Decision Process:

Need Information Evaluation of Purchase Post purchase

Recognition Search Alternatives decision behavior
Need Recognition:
• The first stage of the buyer decision process, in which the consumer
recognizes a problem or a need
• Internal stimuli: a person’s normal needs (hunger, thirst)
• External stimuli: an advertisement or a discussion with a friend might
get you thinking about buying a new car
Information Search:
• The stage of the buyer decision process in which the consumer is
motivated to search for more information
• Consumers can obtain information from various sources:
o Personal sources: family, friends, neighbors,…etc.
o Commercial sources: advertising, salespeople, dealer, websites, packaging)
o Public sources: mass media, social media, online searches, peer reviews
o Experiential sources: examining and using the product
Evaluation of Alternatives:
• The stage of the buyer decision process in which the consumer uses
information to evaluate alternative brands in the choice set.
Purchase decision:
• The buyer decision about which brand to purchase
• Two factors can come between the purchase intention and the
purchase decision:
1. Attitudes of others
2. Unexpected situational factors: expected income, expected price &
expected product benefits
Post-purchase Behavior:
• The stage of the buyer decision process in which consumers take
further action after purchase, based on their satisfaction or
dissatisfaction
The Buyer Decision Process for New
Products:
• New product: a good, service or idea that is perceived by some potential
customers as new
• Adoption process: the mental process through which an individual
passes from first hearing about an innovation to final adoption
• Stages in the adoption Process:
1. Awareness: aware about the product, yet lack info
2. Interest: the consumer seeks information about the product
3. Evaluation: the consumer considers whether trying a new product makes sense
4. Trial: the consumer tries the new product on a small scale to improve his/her
estimate of its value
5. Adoption: the consumer decides to make full & regular use of the new product
Individual Differences in Innovativeness:
• People differ greatly in their readiness to try new products
• The five adopter groups have differing values:
1. Innovators: try new ideas at some risk
2. Early adopters: are guided by respect – they are OL in their communities and
adopt new ideas early but carefully
3. Early mainstream: adopters are deliberate – although they rarely are leaders,
they adopt new ideas before the average person
4. Late mainstream: adopters are skeptical – they adopt an innovation only after
a majority of people have tried it
5. Lagging adopters: are tradition bound – they are suspicious of changes and
adopt the innovation only when it has become something of a tradition itself