CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

Consumer behaviour is the study of how individual customers, groups or organizations select,
buy, use, and dispose ideas, goods, and services to satisfy their needs and wants. It refers to
the actions of the consumers in the marketplace and the underlying motives for those actions.

According to Louden and Bitta, ‘consumer behaviour is the decision process and physical
activity, which individuals engage in when evaluating, acquiring, using or disposing of goods
and services’.

Nature of Consumer Behaviour:

1. Influenced by various factors:
a. Marketing factors such as product design, price, promotion, packaging, positioning and dis-
tribution.

b. Personal factors such as age, gender, education and income level.

c. . Psychological factors such as buying motives, perception of the product and attitudes

towards the product.

d. d. Situational factors such as physical surroundings at the time of purchase, social

surroundings and time factor.

e. e. Social factors such as social status, reference groups and family.

2. Undergoes a constant change:

Consumer behaviour is not static. It undergoes a change over a period of time depending on

the nature of products. For example, kids prefer colourful and fancy footwear, but as they

grow up as teenagers and young adults, they prefer trendy footwear, and as middle-aged and

senior citizens they prefer more sober footwear. The change in buying behaviour may take

place due to several other factors such as increase in income level, education level and

marketing factors.

3. Varies from consumer to consumer:

All consumers do not behave in the same manner. Different consumers behave differently.

The differences in consumer behaviour are due to individual factors such as the nature of the
consumers, lifestyle and culture. For example, some consumers are technoholics. They go

on a shopping and spend beyond their means.

4. Varies from region to region and country to county:

The consumer behaviour varies across states, regions and countries. For example, the

behaviour of the urban consumers is different from that of the rural consumers. A good

number of rural consumers are conservative in their buying behaviours.

5. Information on consumer behaviour is important to the marketers:

Marketers need to have a good knowledge of the consumer behaviour. They need to study

the various factors that influence the consumer behaviour of their target customers.

Scope of Consumer Behaviour:

1) Consumer behaviour and marketing management : Effective business managers

realise the importance of marketing to the success of their firm. A sound understanding of
consumer behaviour is essential to the long run success of any marketing program. In fact, it
is seen as a comerstone of the Marketing concept, an important orientation of philosophy of
many marketing managers. The essence of the Marketing concept is captured in three
interrelated orientations consumers needs and wants, company integrated strategy.

2) Consumer behaviour and non profit and social marketing : In today's world even the
non-profit organisations like government agencies, religious sects, universities and charitable
institutions have to market their services for ideas to the "target group of consumers or
institution." At other times these groups are required to appeal to the general public for
support of certain causes or ideas. Also they make their contribution towards eradication of
the problems of the society. Thus a clear understanding of the consumer behaviour and
decision making process will assist these efforts.

3) Consumer behaviour and demarketing: It has become increasingly clear that

consumers are entering an era of scarcity in terms of some natural gas and water. These
scarcities have led to promotions stressing conservation rather than consumption. In other
circumstances, consumers have been encouraged to decrease or stop their use of particular
goods believed to have harmful effects. Programs designed to reduce drug abuse, gambling,
and similar types of conception examples. These actions have been undertaken by
government agencies non profit organisations, and other private groups. The term
"demarketing" refers to all such efforts to encourage consumers to reduce their consumption
of a particular product or services.

4) Consumer behaviour and consumer education: Consumer also stands to benefit

directly from orderly investigations of their own behaviour. This can occur on an individual
basis or as part of more formal educational programs. For example, when consumers learn
that a large proportion of the billions spend annually on grocery products is used for impulse
purchases and not spend according to pre planned shopping list, consumers may be more
willing to plan effort to save money. In general, as marketers that can influence consumers'
purchases, consumers have the opportunity to understand better how they affect their own
behaviour.

APPLICATION OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR:

1. ANALYSING MARKET OPPORTUNITY :

Consumer behaviour study helps in identifying the unfulfilled needs and wants of consumers.
This requires examining the trends and conditions operating in the marketplace, consumers'
lifestyles, income levels and emerging influences.
The trend towards increasing number of dual income households and greater emphasis on
convenience and leisure have led to emerging needs for household gadgets such as washing
machine, mixer grinder, vacuum cleaner and childcare centres etc.
Mosquito repellents have been marketed in response to a genuine and unfulfilled consumer
need.
2. SELECTING TARGET MARKET :
A review of market opportunities often helps in identifying distinct consumer segments with
very distinct and unique wants and need.
Identifying these groups, learning how they behave and how they make purchase decisions
enables the marketer to design and market products or services particularly suited to their
wants and needs.
For example, consumer studies revealed that many existing and potential shampoo users did
not want to buy shampoo packs priced at Rs. 60 or more and would rather prefer a low
priced sachet containing enough quantity for one or two washes. The finding led companies
to introduce the shampoo sachet which became a good seller.
3. MARKETING MIX :
Once unsatisfied needs and wants are identified, the marketer has to determine the right mix
of product, price, distribution and promotion. Here too, consumer behaviour study is very
helpful in finding answers to many perplexing questions.
4. USE IN SOCIAL AND NON-PROFITS MARKETING :
Consumer behaviour studies are useful to design marketing strategies by social,
governmental an not-for-profit organisations to make their programmes such as family
planning, awareness about AIDS, crime against women, safe
driving, environmental concerns and other more effective.
UNICEF (greeting cards), Red Cross and CRY etc. make use of consumer behaviour
understanding to sell their services and products and also try to motivate people to support
these institutions.

BUYER BEHAVIOUR:

Buyer behavior is the study of how an individual or a group of customers select and analyze
a product or service. It attempts to understand the decision making process of a customer
while selecting a product or service out of all the myriad alternatives available in the market.

5 Stages of consumer buying decision process

1.) Need recognition:- consumer buying decision process starts with need recognition.
The marketer must recognize the needs of the consumer as well as how these needs can be
satisfied. For example if a person is hungry then food is desired or if it is a matter of thirst
than water is desirable.

2.) Information search:– in consumer buying decision process information search comes
at second number. In this stage consumer searches the information about the product either
from family, friends, neighborhood, advertisements, whole seller, retailers, dealers, or by
examining or using the product.
3.) Evaluation of alternatives:– after getting the required knowledge about the product the
consumer evaluate the various alternatives on the basis of it’s want satisfying power, quality
and it’s features.

4.) Purchase decision:– after evaluating the alternatives the buyer buys the suitable
product. But there are also the chances to postpone the purchase decision due to some
reasons. In that case the marketer must try to find out the reasons and try to remove them
either by providing sufficient information to the consumers or by giving them guarantee
regarding the product to the consumer.

5.) Post purchase behavior:– after buying the product consumer will either be satisfied or
dissatisfied. If the consumer is not satisfied in that case he will be disappointed otherwise If
he is satisfied than he will be delighted. It is usually said that a satisfy consumer tell about the
product to 3 people and a dissatisfy consumer tell about the product to 11 people. Therefore
it is the duty of the marketer to satisfy the consumer.

TYPES OF CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOUR

1) Complex buying behavior:- when the consumer is highly involved in the buying and
there is significant differences between brands then it is called complex buying behavior. So
in this case the consumer must collect proper information about the product features and the
marketer must provide detailed information regarding the product attributes. For eg.
Consumer while buying a motor cycle is highly involved in the purchase and has the
knowledge about significant differences between brands.

2) Variety seeking behavior:- in this case consumer involvement is low while buying the
product but there are significant differences between brands. Consumers generally buy
different products not due to dissatisfaction from the earlier product but due to seek variety.
Like every time they buy different washing detergent just for variety. So it is the duty of the
marketer to encourage the consumer to buy the product by offering them discounts, free
samples and by advertising the product a lot.

3) Dissonance buying behavior:- here consumer is highly involved in the purchase but
there are few differences between brands. Like consumer while buying a floor tiles buy them
quickly as there are few differences between brands.

4) Habitual buying behavior:- in this case there is low involvement of the consumer and
there are few differences between brands. The consumer buys the product quickly. For
eg. Toothpaste.