Consumer Behavior Process

So first of all, we have to think about the different marketing stimuli which affect consumer
behavior.
Of course, the first thing is products and services. So what kind of product you're purchasing
definitely affects your behavior. You have to also think about the price of the product, and
also where this product is available. Is it available online or offline? Is it available through a
department store or is it available through a mass merchandiser?
Finally, you have to think about what kind of communications the firm is sending to you as a
consumer in order to understand how you are going to go through the purchase process.
Let's think about some other stimuli, or factors, which affects your behavior.
First of all, you have to consider the economic situation. That is, whether the economy is in
a downturn or is it in a boom? If the economy is in a downturn then probably you have less
money to dispose of and that's why your purchase behavior gets affected.
The second factor is technological. So, if you're buying an electronics product, then the
technological factor is definitely going to impact your purchases. Some other factors which
are definitely important are things like political factors or cultural factors.
The third thing which affects your behavior is your psychology as a consumer. The things
which affects your behavior includes motivations, perceptions, learning, memory and so on,
and we are going to discuss them soon.
Some other characteristics, which are the consumer characteristics, also affect the behavior
of consumers. These include cultural characteristics, it includes social characteristics. Are
you a social person or are you an individualistic person?
That definitely affects the behavior of consumers. Then there are certain factors, like
personality. Are you a outgoing person or are you a person who want to share your thoughts
with all the other people around you?
Then definitely, that affects your behavior.
Once you go through these factors, a consumer goes through different stages in the buying
decision process. Starting from problem recognition, information search, evaluation of
alternatives, purchase decision, and eventually, post-purchase behavior.
Now once you go through those different stages, the question arises, what are the different
purchase decisions which a consumer encounters?
First of all, you encounter product choice. So, what kind of product are you planning to buy?
Is it a product which you buy frequently, something like a consumer packaged goods, think
about milk? On the other hand, you can think about buying a product which is less frequently
purchased, things like electronics.
So definitely there is a difference between the different types of products you choose. Once
you decide on the product you choose, you have to think about the brand choice.
Which is, what brand within the product category you're going to purchase. Once you have
decided on the brand, the next question arises is, where do you going to buy it?
Are you going to buy it through a specific specialized dealer or are you going to buy it through
a mass merchandiser?
That's definitely an important question.
Once you decide on the channel or the place you are going to buy the product, you have to
think about how much money do you want to spend. Of course different channels have
different prices so this is an important consideration as a consumer.
Then you have to decide when do you want to buy it.
If the product is a more high involvement product, then probably you will delay the purchase
in order for the price of the product to come down.
On the other hand, if it's a low involvement product which arises out of necessity, you might
buy it immediately. The final decision which you can encounter is the payment method. That
is, are you going to pay by cash or credit, or take some kind of a loan, and so on. Now let's go
deeper into the different psychological processes which consumers go through when they
make their decision.
There are different theories provided by psychologists which impact consumer behavior
processes. Under motivation, there's Freud's theory, which looks into a laddering or
projective technique. Now, what is a laddering technique?
Basically, every consumer, when they purchase a product, go through different stages of the
decision in order to eventually arrive at the product they want to purchase. And this is
basically a laddering technique. On the other hand, Maslow proposed a theory which looks
at the needs of the consumers. Every consumer has certain types of needs. First of all, every
one of us have a physiological need like food, water, shelter, and most of the cases, our
frequently purchased product falls under this category. The second type of need is called
safety need, this includes security and protection. Third need is called social needs, this
includes love, affection, and so on and so forth. The fourth type of need is called self-esteem
need, this includes recognition, status, and so on. Finally, at the highest level, you have self-
actualization needs. This includes self-development, realization, and so on.
Think about the example of purchasing a Apple iPhone. Now, of course, it has some needs
which arise out of necessity. But none of the needs of purchasing a Apple iPhone comes from
a physiological need. They are definitely more like esteem needs or self-actualization needs.
Finally, another theory was proposed by Herzberg which looks at satisfiers and dissatisfiers.
So, basically, you're purchase decision is driven by the fact that whether you are satisfied by
a particular product or not satisfied by a particular product.
The second psychological process which you encounter is called learning. Here you basically,
over time, learn about a particular product and then discriminate between different products
based on your learning mechanism.
The third psychological process is called memory. Here, every consumer has certain
ingrained memory in their mind. Some of these memories are short-term, some of them are
long-term. Finally, we are going to see the different perspectives of consumer behavior which
marketers think about.
The first of all is called the behavioral perspective, which looks at how consumers respond
to different stimulus. And here we have things like conditioning, and this is a psychology
concept, which you can look at when you take a psychology course, which gives a detailed
understanding of conditioning.
The next perspective of consumer behavior is called the information processing perspective.
Here, consumers go through a problem-solving mechanism and uses their cognition in order
to understand the perspectives.
The third approach is called the emotional perspective, which is basically driven by how you
are emotionally active when you are purchasing a particular product.
There are certain other perspectives which consumers go through, like cultural perspectives.
Or even consumers can combine these emotional perspectives, behavioral perspectives, or
cultural perspectives together in order to arrive at their final purchase decision.
And that's all about the consumer behavior processes.
We have seen what we mean by consumer behavior. And at the same time, we have
understood why do we even need to study consumer behavior. Concurrently, we knew what
are the different factors, both internal and external, which influences the behavior of
consumers, and overall what does consumers play a role in the entire marketing decision
process.
Now, this video is going to cover the consumers' attitudes and thought processes which goes
behind their decision-making behavior. Remember, as we mentioned in the last video,
consumer behavior actually comprises of two main structures. Part of it is psychological, the
other part is more behavioral.
In the psychological side, we go into the psychology of the consumers and it consists mainly
of a cognitive part and affective part.
In the cognitive part, we have to think about the situation where a consumer doesn't yet
know what the product is all about.
What are the different options available? What are the characteristics of the product?
So, he goes ahead and tries to find more information about the product. Once he knows the
product's characteristics and the prices and the features, he is going to the next stage of the
decision process which is more affective.
That is, he starts liking certain features of the product, certain prices and characteristics of
the product, so he slowly develops his preferences.
Once the preferences are developed this is where the consumer is ready to go to a store,
maybe it's a physical store or maybe he goes online, to make the actual purchase.
And this is what the behavioral stage is all about. The consumer goes to the store, buys the
product and takes it home. But remember, it's not only about the buying process but, is the
consumer using the product, and after use, is he liking the product?
If the consumer uses the product and likes the product, he may be going back to the store
once again and purchase the product once more. And that's how by purchasing the product
repeatedly over many periods, the consumer slowly becomes loyal to the product or maybe
to the brand.
Finally, if the consumer is liking the product he might actually try to recommend the product
to his friends, to his family and other people he knows.
Of course, if these guys are also in the market trying to look for this product, they will first
look at the consumers recommendations and try to see whether they actually like the
product, or they want to know more information about the product.
Once they like the product they might go ahead and purchase the product themselves.
That is how the entire marketing decision process works. That is, a consumer recommends
the product to his friends and family, they buy it and that is overall very beneficial to the
marketers because they can then sell more products and thereby increase their profitability.
Remember, when we talked about the consumers buying behavior it's important that the
marketer remembers to maximize his profitability. Of course, the consumer's satisfaction is
primary, but at the end of the day the marketer is looking forward towards maximizing his
profitability. So, this is what the consumers' thought processes and attitudes perspective
look like.
In the next video, we'll go into the actual thoughts which comes to consumer's mind when
he explores different options and then go on to the actual purchase behavior.