Individual or Consumer Buying
Behavior
Consumer Markets and Consumer Buying Behavior
Buying
behavior is the decision processes and acts of people involved in buying and
using products.
Consumer
buying behavior refers to the buying behavior of ultimate consumers— those who
purchase products for personal use and not for business purposes.
Understanding
buying behavior requires knowledge of the consumption process and consumers‘
perceptions of product utility.
Consumer Buying Decision Process
The
consumer buying decision process is a five-stage purchase decision process
which includes problem recognition, information search, evaluation of
alternatives, purchase, and post-purchase evaluation.
The
actual act of purchase is only one stage in the process and is not the first
stage.
Not all
decision processes, once initiated, lead to an ultimate purchase; the
individual may terminate the process at any stage.
Not all consumer
buying decisions include all five stages.
Problem Recognition
This
stage occurs when a buyer becomes aware of a difference between a desired state
and an actual condition.
Recognition
speed can be slow or fast.
Individual
may never become aware of the problem or need. Marketers may use sales
personnel, advertising, and packaging to trigger recognition of needs or
problems.
Information Search
After the
consumer becomes aware of the problem or need, he or she searches for
information about products that will help resolve the problem or satisfy the
need.
There are
two aspects to an information search:
In the
internal search, buyers first search their memories for information
about
products that might solve the problem.
In the
external search, buyers seek information from outside sources.
An
external search occurs if buyers cannot retrieve enough information from their
memories for a decision.
Buyers
seek information from friends, relatives, public sources, such as government
reports or publications, or marketer-dominated sources of information, such as
salespeople, advertising, websites, package labeling, and in-store
demonstrations and displays. The Internet has become a major information
source.
Repetition,
a technique well known to advertisers, increases consumers‘ learning.
Repetition eventually may cause wear-out, meaning consumers pay less attention
to the commercial and respond to it less favorably than they did at first.
Evaluation of Alternatives
A
successful information search within a product category yields a consideration
set (aka evoked set), which is a group of brands that the buyer views as
possible alternatives.
The
consumer establishes a set of evaluative criteria, which are objective and
subjective characteristics that are important to him or her.
The
consumer uses these criteria to rates and ranks brands in the consideration
set.
Marketers
can influence consumers‘ evaluations by ―framing‖ the alternatives—that is, by
the manner in which they describe the alternatives and attributes.
Purchase
Purchase
selection is based on the outcome of the evaluation stage and other dimensions.
Product
availability, seller choice, and terms of sale may influence the final product
selection.
The buyer
may choose to terminate the buying decision process, in which case no purchase
will be made.
Postpurchase Evaluation
After
purchase, the buyer begins to evaluate the product to ascertain if the actual
performance meets expected levels.
Evaluation
is based on many of the same criteria used when evaluating alternatives.
Cognitive
dissonance is a buyer‘s doubts that arise shortly after a purchase about
whether it was the right decision.
1.Factors Influencing Buyer
Behaviour
Situational Influences on the
Buying Decision Process
Situational
influences are factors that result from circumstances, time, and location that
affect the consumer buying decision process.
Can
influence a consumer‘s actions in any stage of the buying process
Can
shorten, lengthen, or terminate the buying process.
Situational
factors can be divided into five categories:
Physical
surroundings include location, store atmosphere, aromas, sounds, lighting,
weather, and other factors in the physical environment in which the decision
process occurs.
Social
surroundings include characteristics and interactions of others who are present
during a purchase decision or who may be present when the product is used or
consumed (e.g. friends, relatives or salespeople), as well as conditions during
the shopping environment (e.g. an overcrowded store may cause the buyer to
terminate the buying decision process).
The time
dimension influences the buying decision process in several ways, such as the
amount of time required to become knowledgeable about a product, to search for
it, and to buy and use it.
Time
plays a role as the buyer considers the possible frequency of product use, the
length of time required to use the product, and the length of the overall
product life.
Other
time dimensions influence purchases, including time of day, day of the week or
month, seasons, and holidays.
The
amount of time pressure a consumer is under affects how much time is devoted to
purchase decisions. A customer under severe time constraints is likely either
to make a quick purchase decision or to delay a decision.
The
reason for the purchase raises the questions of what the product purchase
should accomplish and for whom. For example, people who are buying a gift may
buy a different product from one they would buy for themselves.
The
buyer‘s momentary moods or conditions (e.g., fatigue, illness, having cash) may
have a bearing on the consumer buying decision process. Any of these moods or
conditions can affect a person‘s ability and desire to search for information,
receive information, or seek and evaluate alternatives. They can also
significantly influence a consumer‘s post-purchase evaluation.
Psychological Influences on the
Buying Decision Process
Psychological
influences are those which operate in part to determine people‘s general
behavior and thus influence their behavior as consumers. Psychological factors
are internal, but are affected by outside social forces.
Perception
Perception
is the process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting information inputs to
produce meaning.
Information
inputs are sensations received through sight, taste, hearing, smell, and touch.
Perception
is highly complex, leading markets to increasingly take a multi-sensory
approach.
Perception
is a three-step process.
Although
we receive numerous pieces of information at once, only a few reach our
awareness.
Only a
few pieces of information reach our awareness through a process called
selective exposure, in which an individual selects which inputs will reach
awareness. A person‘s current set of needs affects selective exposure, with
preference given to one‘s strongest needs.
The
selective nature of perception may result in two other phenomena: selective
distortion and selective retention.
Selective
distortion is changing or twisting currently received information; it occurs
when a person receives information inconsistent with personal feelings or
beliefs.
In
selective retention, a person
remembers information inputs that support personal feelings and beliefs and
forgets inputs that do not.
Perceptual
organization is the second step in the perception process. Information inputs
that reach awareness must be organized by the brain in such a way as to produce
meaning. An individual mentally organizes and integrate new information with
what is already stored in memory.
―Closure‖
is an organizational method in which a persona mentally fills in information
gaps to make a pattern or statement.
Interpretation,
the third step in the perceptual process, is the assignment of meaning to what
has been organized. A person bases interpretation on what he or she expects or
what is familiar.
Marketers
cannot control buyers‘ perceptions, but they try to influence them through
information. This approach is problematic.
A
consumer‘s perceptual process may operate so that a seller‘s information never
reaches awareness.
A buyer
may receive a seller‘s information but perceives it differently than intended.
A buyer
may perceive information inputs to be inconsistent with prior beliefs and
therefore are likely to forget the information quickly (selective retention).
Motives
A motive
is an internal energizing force which directs a person‘s behavior toward
satisfying needs or achieving goals.
A buyer‘s
actions are affected by a set of motives, some stronger than others.
Motives
affect the direction and intensity of behavior.
Psychologist
Abraham Maslow conceived a theory of motivation; Maslow‘s hierarchy of needs
organizes human needs into five levels. Humans try to satisfy these needs
starting with the most basic. Once needs at one level are met, humans move on
to fulfilling needs at the next level:
At the
most basic level are ―physiological needs,‖ requirements for survival such as
food, water, sex, clothing, and shelter.
At the
next level are ―safety needs,‖ which include security and freedom from physical
and emotional pain and suffering.
Next are
―social needs,‖ the human requirements for love and affection and a sense of
belonging.
At the
level of ―esteem needs,‖ people require respect and recognition from others as
well as self-esteem, a sense of one‘s own worth.
At the
top of the hierarchy are ―self-actualization needs,‖ which refer to people‘s
need to grow and develop and to become all they are capable of becoming.
Most
people do not reach the final levels of the hierarchy.
Patronage
motives are motives such as price, service or friendly salespeople, which
influence where a person purchases products on a regular basis.
Learning
Learning
refers to changes in an individual‘s thought processes and behaviors caused by
information and experience.
The
learning process is strongly influenced by the consequences of an individual‘s
behavior; behaviors with satisfying results tend to be repeated.
Inexperienced
buyers may use different, more simplistic, types of information than experienced
shoppers familiar with the product and purchase situation.
Marketers
help customers learn about their products by helping them gain experience with
them, perhaps through free samples, in-store demonstrations, and test drives.
Consumers
learn about products indirectly through information from salespeople, friends,
relatives, and advertisements.
Attitudes
An
attitude is an individual‘s enduring evaluation of, feelings about, and
behavioral tendencies toward a tangible or intangible object or idea.
Attitudes
remain generally stable in the short term, but they can change over time.
An
attitude consists of three major components:
cognitive
(knowledge and information about an object or idea)
affective
(feelings and emotions toward an object or idea)
behavioral
(actions regarding an object or idea)
Consumers‘
attitudes toward a firm and its products strongly influence the success or
failure of the organization‘s marketing strategy.
Marketers
should measure consumer attitudes toward prices, package designs, brand names,
advertisements, salespeople, repair services, store locations, features of
existing or proposed products, and social responsibility activities.
Seeking
to understand attitudes has resulted in two major academic models
The
Fishbein Model (the attitude toward the object) can be used to understand a
consumer‘s attitude, including beliefs about product attributes, strength of
beliefs and evaluation of beliefs. These elements
combine
to form the overall attitude toward the object.
The
Theory of Reasoned Action (behavior intentions model) focuses on intentions to
act or purchase. It considers consumer perceptions of what other people believe
is the best choice among a set of alternatives and focuses on attitudes toward
buying behavior.
Several
methods help marketers gauge consumer attitude.
Direct
questioning of consumers.
The
Internet and social networking sites have become valuable tools.
An
attitude scale is a means of measuring consumers‘ attitudes by gauging the
intensity of individuals‘ reactions to adjectives, phrases, or sentences about
an object.
Marketers
may try to change negative attitudes toward an aspect of a marketing mix to
make them more favorable, but this is generally a long, expensive, and
difficult task and may require extensive promotional efforts.
Personality and Self-Concept
Personality
is a set of internal traits and distinct behavioral tendencies which result in
consistent patterns of behavior.
Personality
arises from unique hereditary characteristics and personal experiences.
Studies
of the link between buying behavior and personality have been inconclusive;
although many marketers are convinced there is a link.
The VALS
program is a consumer framework based on individual personality
characteristics.
Advertisements
may be aimed at certain personality types, usually focusing on positively
valued personality characteristics.
Self-concept,
or self-image, is a perception or view of oneself.
Buyers
purchase products that reflect and enhance self-concept.
A
person‘s self-concept may influence whether he or she buys a product in a
specific product category and may have an impact on brand selection.
Lifestyles
A
lifestyle is an individual‘s pattern of living expressed through activities,
interests, and opinions.
Lifestyle
patterns include the way people spend time, extent of interaction with others,
and general outlook on life and living.
People
partially determine their own lifestyle, but lifestyles are influenced by other
factors such as personality and demographics.
Lifestyles
strongly impact the consumer buying decision process, including product needs.
The VALS
program
Developed
by SRI Consulting Business Intelligence
One of
the most popular frameworks for exploring consumer lifestyles. It divides consumers
into eight groups: innovators, thinkers, achievers, experiencers, believers,
strivers, makers and survivors.
2.Level of Involvement and Consumer Problem-Solving
Processes
To
acquire and maintain products that satisfy their current and future needs,
consumers engage in different types of problem-solving processes depending on
the nature of the products involved. The amount of effort, both mental and
physical, that buyers expend in solving problems also varies considerably.
A major
determinant of the type of problem-solving process employed depends on the
customer‘s level of involvement, the
degree of interest in a product and the importance the individual places on
that product.
Levels of
involvement may be classified as low, high, enduring, and situational.
High-involvement
products tend to be those that are visible to others (e.g., clothing,
furniture, or automobiles) and expensive, as well as issues of high importance,
such as health care.
Low-involvement
products tend to be less expensive and have less associated social risk, such
as many grocery items.
A
person‘s ongoing and long-term interest in a product or product category is
referred to as ―enduring involvement.‖
―Situational
involvement‖ is temporary and dynamic, and results from a particular set of
circumstances, such as the need to buy a new car after being involved in an
accident.
Consumer
involvement may be attached to product categories (e.g., sports), loyalty to a
specific brand, interest in a specific advertisement (e.g., a funny commercial)
or a medium (such as a particular television show), or to certain decisions and
behaviors (e.g., a love of shopping).
Involvement
level, as well as other factors, affects a person‘s selection of one of three
types of consumer problem solving: routinized response behavior, limited
problem solving, or extended problem solving.
Routinized
response behavior is the type of consumer problem-solving process which
requires very little search-and-decision effort; it is used for low-priced,
frequently-purchased products.
Limited
problem solving is a type of consumer problem-solving process buyers use when
they occasionally purchase products or need information about unfamiliar brands
in a familiar product category; it requires a moderate amount of time for
information gathering and deliberation.
Extended
problem solving is the consumer problem-solving process employed with
unfamiliar, expensive, or infrequently purchased products, such as a car, home,
and college education; buyers use many criteria to evaluate brands and spend
time searching for information and deciding on the purchase.
Impulse
buying, in contrast, is an unplanned buying behavior involving a powerful urge
to immediately buy something.
Influencing buyer behaviour
Social
influences are the forces other people exert on one‘s buying behavior.
Roles
Every
person occupies a position within groups, organizations and institutions.
A role is
a set of actions and activities an individual in a particular position is
supposed to perform based on the expectations of both the individual and
surrounding persons.
Each
individual has many roles and each role affects both general behavior and
buying behavior.
Family Influences
An
individual‘s family roles directly influence their buying behavior.
Consumer
socialization is the process through which a person acquires the knowledge and
skills to function as a consumer.
The
extent to which different family members take part in family decision making
varies between families and product categories. Traditional family decision
making processes are divided into four categories: autonomic, husband dominant,
wife dominant, and syncratic.
The
family life cycle stage affects individual and joint needs of family members.
Within a
household, an individual may perform one or more buying-decision roles.
The
gatekeeper is the household member who collects and controls information—price
and quality comparisons, locations of sellers, and assessment of which brand
best suits the family‘s needs.
The
influencer is a family member who expresses his or her opinions and tries to
influence buying decisions.
The
decider is a member who makes the buying choice.
The buyer
is a member who actually makes the purchase.
The user
is any household member who consumes or uses the product.
Reference Groups
A
reference group is any group—large or small—that positively or negatively
affects a person‘s values, attitudes, or behaviors.
There are
three major types of reference groups: membership, aspirational, and
dissociative.
A
membership reference group is one to which an individual actually belongs; the
individual identifies with group members strongly enough to take on the values,
attitudes, and behaviors of people in that group.
An
aspirational reference group is a group to which a person aspires to belong;
the individual desires to be like those group members.
A group
that a person does not wish to be associated with is a dissociative or negative
reference group; the individual does not want to take on the values, attitudes,
and behavior of group members.
A
reference group is an individual‘s point of comparison and a source of
information.
How much
a reference group influences a purchasing decision depends on the individual‘s
susceptibility to reference group influence and strength of involvement with
the group.
Reference
group influence may affect the product decision, the brand decision, or both.
A
marketer sometimes uses reference group influence in advertisements to promote
product purchases and high product satisfaction within a specific group.
Opinion Leaders
An
opinion leader is a reference group member with knowledge or expertise who
provides information about a specific sphere that interests reference group
participants.
An
opinion leader is likely to be most influential when consumers have high
product involvement but low product knowledge, when they share the opinion
leader‘s values and attitudes, and when the product details are numerous or
complicated.
Social Classes
A social
class is an open aggregate of people with similar social rank.
Criteria
used to group people into classes vary from one society to another.
In the
United States, we group according to many factors, including occupation,
education, income, wealth, race, ethnic group, and possessions; analyses of
social class in the U.S. divide people into three to seven class categories
(see Table 7.4 on pp. 210 in the text).
Individuals
within social classes develop some common patterns of behavior, attitudes,
values, language patterns and possessions.
Because
social class influences so many aspects of a person‘s life, it also affects
Buying
decisions
Spending,
saving, and credit practices
Type,
quality, and quantity of products
Shopping
patterns and stores patronized
Culture and Subcultures
Culture
is the accumulation of values, knowledge, beliefs, customs, objects, and
concepts that a society uses to cope with its environment and passes on to
future generations
Culture
includes:
Tangible
items such as food, clothing, furniture, buildings, and tools
Intangible
concepts such as education, welfare, and laws
The
values and a broad range of behaviors accepted by a specific society
Because
cultural influences affect the ways people buy and use products, culture
affects the development, promotion, distribution, and pricing of products.
International
marketers must take into account global cultural differences.
People in
other regions of the world have different attitudes, values, and needs.
International
marketers must adapt to different methods of doing business and must develop
different types of marketing mixes.
Subcultures
are groups of individuals whose characteristic values and behavior patterns are
similar and differ from those of the surrounding culture.
Subcultural
boundaries are usually based on geographic designations and demographic factors.
Marketers
recognize that the growth in the number of U.S. subcultures has resulted in
considerable variation in consumer buying behavior.
African American Subculture
Represents
12.3% of the U.S. population
Spend
more money on depreciable products like clothing, entertainment and food.
Many
companies have renewed their advertising focus on African Americans.
Hispanic Subculture
Is the
largest ethnic group, with 15% of the U.S. population, and is growing rapidly
This
subculture is composed of many diverse cultures from across Latin America.
Many
companies have Spanish-language advertising and promotions featuring Hispanic
and Latino celebrities.
Asian American Subculture
Represents
4.4% of the U.S. population and is comprised of 15 different ethnic groups.
Individual
language, religion, and value system of each group influences purchasing
decisions, although some traits are common among all the ethnic groups.
Some
cross-culture traits include an emphasis on hard work, strong family ties, and
high value placed on education.
Consumer Misbehavior
Consumer
misbehavior is behavior that violates generally accepted norms of a particular
society.
Definitions
of misbehavior can vary between cultures
Shoplifting,
consumer fraud, abusive consumers, and pirating/illegally copying products are
all examples of consumer misbehavior.
Understanding
the psychological and social reasons for misconduct can help in preventing and
responding to problems
4.Models of Consumer Behaviour
The
psychoanalytical model : The psychoanalytical model draws from Freudian
psychology. According to this model, the individual consumer has a complex set
of deep seated motives which drive him towards certain buying decisions. The
buyer has a private world with all his hidden fears, suppressed desires and
totally subjective longings. His buying action can
be influenced by appealing to
those desires and longings.
4.1.Learning model:
All
theories of buyer behaviour have been basically based on a learning model
namely, Stimulation- Response or more popularly known as SR model. SR learning
theory is very useful to modern marketing and marketers. Learning is the
centrifugal point in the entire study to human behaviour. Learning, as noted
earlier, refers to a change in the behaviour which occurs as a result of
practice. It is a change in the behaviour that results from previous experience
and behaviour in similar situations. What is important, learning is a product
of reasoning, thinking, information processing and, of course, perception.
Therefore, behaviour is deeply affected by the learning experiences of the
buyers.
4.2.Sociological model:
According
to sociological model, the individual buyer behaviour is influenced by society—
by intimate groups as well as social classes. That is, his buying decisions are
not totally determined by the concept of utility. That is his buying decisions
are governed by social compulsions.
Nicosia model: As well
known consumer motivation and bevaviour expert Mr. Nicosia presented his buyer
model in 1966 which attempts to establish linkages between the marketing firm
and its consumer. The essence is how the activities of the firm influence the
consumer and result in his direction to buy. According to his model the
messages from the firm first influence the predisposition of the consumer
towards the product, he develops a certain attitude towards the product
depending on the situation.
4.3.Howard Sheth Model
John
Howard and Jagdish Sheth presented their buyer model in 1969. its an integrated
model. It assumes problem solving approach in buying and adopts input-output or
system approach in buying. Howard introduced learning process in buying.
Satisfaction leads brand loyalty. Discontentment creates brand switching by the
buyers. It other words , the logic of this model that there are inputs in the
form of stimuli. There are output beginning with attention to a given stimulus
and ending the purchase. In between these inputs and outputs , there are
variable affecting perception and learning. These variables are ―hypothetical‖ as they can not be directly
measured at the time of occurrence.
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