CHAPTER 16

Understanding
Consumer Behaviour

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 Chapter 16: Understanding Consumer Behaviour

At the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

⮚ Appreciate that a Proper Understanding of Consumer Behaviour is

Essential for Value Delivery
⮚ Size up that Decoding Consumer Behaviour is a Complex Ballgame
⮚ Comprehend that to Unravel Consumer Behaviour, the Marketer
Needs to Draw from Several Fields of Knowledge
⮚ Identify the Individual - Specific Factors Influencing Buying Behaviour
⮚ Identify the Psychological Processes Underlying Buying Behaviour
⮚ Comprehend Buying Motives and Buying Habits
⮚ Identify the Stages the Consumer Goes Through in a Buying Decision
⮚ Understand the Patterns of Consumer Behaviour in Adopting New
Products
⮚ Identify the Various Participants in Buying Decisions and Their Roles
⮚ Get and Idea ©
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Buyer Behaviour India to Business Markets
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 Chapter 16: Understanding Consumer Behaviour

■ Comprehending Consumer’s Value Selection Helps Value Selection

by the Marketer
Exhibit 16.1 The Value a Buyer Seeks in a Car (Pg 248)

■ What a Marketer Needs to Know on Consumer Behaviour

Fig 16.1 What a Marketer

needs to know on
Consumer Behaviour
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 Chapter 16: Understanding Consumer Behaviour
Decoding Consumer Behaviour, a Complex Ballgame
■ Consumer, a Riddle or Enigma; Consumer Behaviour, a Theorem
without Proof
⮚ Consumer does not go by set rules in his buying decision
⮚ The task becomes particularly difficult in present times

In Unravelling Consumer Behaviour, the Marketer

Needs to Draw from Several Fields
⮚ Economics, Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology

▪ Buyer Behaviour Models

▪ The Economic Model Exhibit 16.2 Buyer Behaviour Models (Pg 250)
▪ The Learning Model
▪ The Psycho-analytical Model
▪ The Sociological Model
▪The Systems © Macmillan
Model: The NicosiaPublishers India
Model, The Howard-Sheth Model
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 Chapter 16: Understanding Consumer Behaviour

Consumer-Specific Factors Influencing Buying Behaviour

▪ Personal Factors
⮚ Demographics of the consumer
⮚ Psychographics of the consumer
▪ Attitude, a major part of psychographics
▪ Lifestyle, another vital part

▪ Socio-Cultural Factors Exhibit 16.3 Culture Manifests

⮚ Culture Through Several Things (Pg 252)

⮚ Social factors / influence of reference groups

▪ Intimate groups
▪ Secondary groups
Opinion leaders
▪ The larger social class

▪ Information Reaching the Consumer from Various Sources

▪ Advertising, Samples/Trials, Display in shops, Salesmen’s suggestions

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 Chapter 16: Understanding Consumer Behaviour
Psychological Processes Underlying
Consumer Behaviour/Buying Decisions
■ The Motivation Process
▪ Motives/Aroused Needs activate buying
Fig. 16.2 Maslow’s Hierarchy
▪ Psychologists categorise needs in different ways of Needs
▪ Abraham Maslow provides a five fold classification
■ The Perception Process
▪ Perception is different from reality
▪ Selective perception
Selective in attention
Selective in distortion
Selective in retention
■ The Learning Process
▪ Learning is one sure route to change in behaviour
▪ Marketing is actively involved in the buyer’s learning process
▪ Buyer’s learning and behavioural changes take place all the time
■ The Memory Process
▪ Experiences and accumulated information deposited in the buyer’s memory
▪ Marketers have to remain fresh and active in the buyer’s memory
▪ Most communication strategies aim to stay on top of buyer’s memory
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 Chapter 16: Understanding Consumer Behaviour
Buying Motives

■ Product Motives and Patronage Motives

■ Product Motives
⮚ Emotional Product Motives and Rational Product Motives
⮚ Limitations of the ‘Emotional’ and ‘Rational’ Classification
⮚Classification into Operational & Socio-Psychological Product Motives

■ Patronage Motives
⮚ Emotional and Rational
Patronage

■ Marketing Significance of
Fig 16.3 Classification
Buying Motives
▪ Marketer’s success lies in of Buying Motives
understanding the specific motives
and appealing to them
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 Chapter 16: Understanding Consumer Behaviour
Buying Habits /Shopping Behaviour

■ Buying Habits /Shopping Behaviour Vary Depending on the Type of

Goods
⮚ Convenience goods
⮚ Shopping goods
⮚ Speciality goods

▪ Consumer Characteristics and Purchase Situation together Govern

Buying Habits/Shopping Behaviour
⮚ The store loyals, The store switchers, The cherry pickers
⮚ Purchase situations also impact shopping behaviour
▪ The need to save time and the emergence of one-stop-shops, multi-brand, large
format stores and malls

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 Chapter 16: Understanding Consumer Behaviour
Stages the Consumer Goes Through in Buying Decision

■ Problem Recognition (Need Recognition)

■ Awareness (Information Search)
■ Comprehension (Evaluation of Alternatives)
■ Attitude
■ Legitimisation
■ Trial
■ Adoption (Purchase Decision)
■ Post-Purchase Behaviour

Chart 16.1 Stages the Consumer Goes Through in a Buying Decision (Pg 260)
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Stages in Buying Decision (…contd)
▪ High-Involvement and Low-Involvement Buying Situations

⮚ Bring forth differing buying behaviour

⮚ Impact the stages the consumer goes through in a buying
decision

Consumer Behaviour in Adopting New Products

■ Everett Rogers classifies consumers into five categories according to their
readiness to try new products/ ideas:

▪Innovators
▪Early Adopters
▪ Early Majority
▪ Late Majority
▪ Laggards
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 Chapter 16: Understanding Consumer Behaviour
Participants in Buying Decisions and Their Roles
■ Initiator, Influencer, Decider, Payer and User
■ Parents Play the Decider/Payer; Children, the Influencer
■ Tweens as Influencers, a Prominent Feature in Modern Times
⮚ Modifying Consumer Behaviour a Time-Consuming Task
Exhibit 16.4 Converting Indians to Fast Foods (Page 264)

Buyer Behaviour – Business Markets

■ Business Buyer
⮚ Grouping of business buyers
■ Distinctive Features of Business Buying
▪ Difference in motives/goals of purchase
▪ More of rational buying
▪ Knowledgeable and professional buyers
▪ Size and value of the purchase is large
▪ Purchase is infrequent
▪ Time-consuming and involves long negotiations
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 Chapter 16: Understanding Consumer Behaviour
■ Distinctive Features of Business Buying (…contd)
▪ Several People – ‘a complete buying centre’ - involved in the buying
▪ Involves procedures/documentation
▪ Supplies are often made to specifications
▪ Competitive bids
▪ Few buyers, each with large buying clout
▪ Concentration of buyers
▪ Direct, one-to-one, relationship with buyer
▪ Buying involves technical tasks
▪ Introducing new products takes time
▪ Derived demand
▪ In distribution too, business buying is unique
▪ Business buyer sometimes buys through intermediaries, but the
channels are unique
▪ Business buyers, today, shop online to a larger extent and are distinct in
their online transactions
▪ Marketers have to constantly keep in touch with the buyers
▪ Business buying is ‘Partnering’

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