Chapter 5
Consumer markets and consumer buyer
behavior
A presentation by: Shahneela Naheed
Consumer buyer behavior
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 who buy or
acquire goods and services for personal consumption
Characteristics affecting consumer behavior
Cultural factors
Culture: the set of basic values, perceptions, wants and behaviors learned by a
member of society from family and other important institutions
Subculture: smaller groups of people within each culture with shared value
systems based on common life experiences and situations
Social class: society's relatively permanent and ordered divisions whose
members share similar values, interests and behaviors
Social factors
Reference Group
Opinion leader: buzz marketing- word of mouth influence
Online social networks
Family
Roles and status
Personal factors
Age and lifecycle stage
Occupation
Economic situation
Lifestyle
Personality: brand personality
Psychological factors
Motive: a need that is sufficiently pressing to direct the person to seek
satisfaction of the need.
Perception: the process by which people select, organize, and interpret to
form a meaningful picture of the world
Learning: changes in an individual’s behavior arising from experience.
Belief: a descriptive thought that a person holds about something.
Attitude: a person’s consistently favorable or unfavorable evaluations, feelings,
and tendencies toward an object or idea.
Psychological factors
⚫ Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Types of buying decision behavior
High involvement Low involvement
Significant
differences
between brands
Few differences
between brands
Types of buying decision behavior
Complex buying behavior: consumer buying behavior in situations characterized by
high consumer involvement in a purchase and significant perceived differences among
brands. Typically consumers have much to learn about the product category before
purchase decision. This buyer will pass through a learning process, first developing
beliefs about the product, then attitudes and then making a thoughtful purchase
choice. For example: a PC buyer will need to study the attributes such as, brand, price,
software, style, memory storage, service contract etc.
Variety seeking buying behavior: consumer buying behavior in situations
characterized by low consumer involvement in a purchase but significant perceived
differences among brands. In such cases, consumers often do a lot of brand switching.
For instance, when buying biscuits, a consumer may hold some beliefs, choose a biscuit
brand without much evaluating and then evaluate that brand during consumption. But
the next time, the consumer may pick another brand out of boredom or simply to try
a different brand. Brand switching occurs for the sake of variety rather than because of
dissatisfaction.
Types of buying decision behavior
Habitual buying behavior: consumer buying behavior in situations characterized by
low consumer involvement in a purchase and few significantly perceived differences
among brands. For example, when buying salt, a consumer will have low involvement
in the product category, will simply go to the store and reach for a brand. If they keep
reaching for the same brand, it is out of habit rather than strong brand loyalty.
Consumers appear to have low involvement with most low cost, frequently purchased
products.
Dissonance reducing buying behavior: consumer buying behavior in situations
characterized by high consumer involvement in a purchase but few perceived
differences among brands. For instance, consumers buying furniture or curtain
material may face a high involvement decision because they are expensive and self
expressive. Yet buyers may consider most brands selling furniture or curtain material
in a given price range to be the same. Since perceived brand differences are not large,
buyers may shop around to learn what is available but buy relatively quickly. After the
purchase consumers may experience post-purchase dissonance.
The buyer decision process
Buyer decision process for new products
⚫ New product
⚫ Adoption process
⚫ Adoption process: 5 stages:
1. Awareness
2. Interest
3. Evaluation
4. Trial
5. Adoption/Rejection
Innovation adoption cycle &
the adopter groups
Factors that influence the rate of adoption
Relative advantage: the more the relative advantages of a product is, the
faster will be the adoption rate
Compatibility: the more compatible the product is with lifestyle,
personality etc, the faster would be the rate of adoption
Complexity: the more complex the product is, the more time it will
take for consumers to adopt it
Divisibility: the more divisible the product is, the faster would be the
adoption rate
Communicability: if consumers can easily communicate about the
product, the adoption rate will be faster