What Is Consumer Buying Behavior?: Need To Understand
What Is Consumer Buying Behavior?: Need To Understand
What Is Consumer Buying Behavior?: Need To Understand
Need to understand:
Buyers reactions to a firms marketing strategy has a great impact on the firms success.
The marketing concept stresses that a firm should create a Marketing Mix (MM) that
satisfies (gives utility to) customers, therefore need to analyze the what, where, when and
how consumers buy.
Marketers can better predict how consumers will respond to marketing strategies.
A successful information search leaves a buyer with possible alternatives, the evoked
set.
o chinese food
o indian food
o burger king
o klondike kates etc
The purchase of the same product does not always elicit the same Buying
Behavior. Product can shift from one category to the next.
For example:
Going out for dinner for one person may be extensive decision making (for
someone that does not go out often at all), but limited decision making for
someone else. The reason for the dinner, whether it is an anniversary
celebration, or a meal with a couple of friends will also determine the extent
of the decision making.
1. Personal
2. Psychological
3. Social
The marketer must be aware of these factors in order to develop an
appropriate MM for its target market.
Personal
Psychological factors
Motives--
A motive is an internal energizing force that orients a person's activities toward satisfying
a need or achieving a goal.
Actions are effected by a set of motives, not just one. If marketers can identify motives then
they can better develop a marketing mix.
MASLOW hierarchy of needs!!
o Physiological
o Safety
o Love and Belonging
o Esteem
o Self Actualization
Need to determine what level of the hierarchy the consumers are at to determine what
motivates their purchases.
Perception--
What do you see?? Perception is the process of selecting, organizing and interpreting
information inputs to produce meaning. IE we chose what info we pay attention to,
organize it and interpret it.
Information inputs are the sensations received through sight, taste, hearing, smell and
touch.
Selective Exposure-select inputs to be exposed to our awareness. More likely if it is
linked to an event, satisfies current needs, intensity of input changes (sharp price drop).
Advertisers that use comparative advertisements (pitching one product against another),
have to be very careful that consumers do not distort the facts and perceive that the
advertisement was for the competitor. A current example...MCI and AT&T...do you
ever get confused?
Selective Retention-Remember inputs that support beliefs, forgets those that don't.
Average supermarket shopper is exposed to 17,000 products in a shopping visit lasting
30 minutes-60% of purchases are unplanned. Exposed to 1,500 advertisement per day.
Can't be expected to be aware of all these inputs, and certainly will not retain many.
Inexperience buyers often use prices as an indicator of quality more than those who
have knowledge of a product.
Non-alcoholic Beer example: consumers chose the most expensive six-pack, because
they assume that the greater price indicates greater quality.
Attitudes--
Knowledge and positive and negative feelings about an object or activity-maybe
tangible or intangible, living or non- living.....Drive perceptions
Individual learns attitudes through experience and interaction with other people.
Consumer attitudes toward a firm and its products greatly influence the success or
failure of the firm's marketing strategy.
Attitudes and attitude change are influenced by consumers personality and lifestyle.
Consumers screen information that conflicts with their attitudes. Distort information to
make it consistent and selectively retain information that reinforces our attitudes. IE
brand loyalty.
Personality--
all the internal traits and behaviors that make a person unique, uniqueness arrives from a
person's heredity and personal experience. Examples include:
o Workaholism
o Compulsiveness
o Self confidence
o Friendliness
o Adaptability
o Ambitiousness
o Dogmatism
o Authoritarianism
o Introversion
o Extroversion
o Aggressiveness
o Competitiveness.
Traits effect the way people behave. Marketers try to match the store image to the
perceived image of their customers.
There is a weak association between personality and Buying Behavior, this may be due
to unreliable measures. Nike ads. Consumers buy products that are consistent with their
self concept.
Lifestyles--
Social Factors
Opinion leaders--
Spokespeople etc. Marketers try to attract opinion leaders...they actually use (pay)
spokespeople to market their products. Michael Jordon (Nike, McDonalds, Gatorade etc.)
Role...things you should do based on the expectations of you from your position within a
group.
People have many roles.
Husband, father, employer/ee. Individuals role are continuing to change therefore
marketers must continue to update information.
Family is the most basic group a person belongs to. Marketers must understand:
The Family life cycle: families go through stages, each stage creates different consumer
demands:
Reference Groups--
Individual identifies with the group to the extent that he takes on many of the values,
attitudes or behaviors of the group members.
The degree to which a reference group will affect a purchase decision depends on an
individuals susceptibility to reference group influence and the strength of his/her
involvement with the group
Social Class--
an open group of individuals who have similar social rank. US is not a classless society.
US criteria; occupation, education, income, wealth, race, ethnic groups and possessions.
Social class influences many aspects of our lives. IE upper middle class Americans
prefer luxury cars Mercedes.
Social class determines to some extent, the types, quality, quantity of products that a
person buys or uses.
Lower class people tend to stay close to home when shopping, do not engage in much
prepurchase information gathering.
Stores project definite class images.
Family, reference groups and social classes are all social influences on consumer
behavior. All operate within a larger culture.
Culture refers to the set of values, ideas, and attitudes that are accepted by a homogenous
group of people and transmitted to the next generation.
o geographic regions
o human characteristics such as age and ethnic background.
Culture effects what people buy, how they buy and when they buy.