Consumer Buyer Behavior Overview

Consumer Buyer Behavior Overview

• Consumer Buyer Behavior: How individuals and households purchase goods and services for personal use
• Consumer Market: All final consumers who buy products or services for personal consumption
• Marketing Insights: Marketers strive to understand why, how, when, and where consumers make purchases to tailor their marketing strategies

Model of Consumer Behavior

• Stimulus-Response Model: Marketing stimuli (product, price, place, promotion) and other external factors influence consumer behavior, leading to responses like purchase choices and brand preferences
• Marketers Goal: Understanding how consumers react to different marketing strategies to predict and influence their choices

Factors Affecting Consumer Behavior

• Cultural Factors:

  • Culture: Influences values, perceptions, preferences, and behaviors learned from family and society
  • Subculture: Distinct value systems within a broader culture, often based on ethnicity, religion, or geography.
  • Social Class: Relatively permanent societal divisions based on income, education, and occupation, impacting product preferences.

• Social Factors:

  • Groups: Various groups that influence consumer behavior:
    • Membership Groups: Direct influence from groups a person belongs to (e.g., friends, family).
    • Aspirational Groups: Groups a person desires to belong to (e.g., celebrities).
    • Reference Groups: Serve as comparison points (e.g., influencers)
  • Opinion Leaders: Individuals within a reference group who influence others, often targeted in marketing campaigns.
  • Family: The most significant consumer-buying organization, shaping individual preferences and brand loyalty.

• Personal Factors:

  • Age and Life-Cycle Stage: Needs and wants change throughout life stages, impacting purchasing decisions. (e.g., RBC Royal Bank categorizes stages like Youth, Getting Started, Builders, Accumulators, and Preservers)
  • Occupation: Influencing the types of products purchased.
  • Economic Situation: Income, savings, and interest rates influence consumer purchasing power.
  • Lifestyle: Describes a person’s pattern of living in terms of activities, interests, and opinions (AIOs), used for market segmentation.
  • Personality and Self-Concept: Unique psychological traits that influence behavior.
    • Brand Personality: Traits used by brands to convey personality, like sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness (e.g., Apple is associated with excitement).

• Psychological Factors:

  • Motivation: A need that is pressing enough to direct an individual toward satisfying it.
    • Motivation Research: Uses qualitative methods to uncover consumer motivations
    • Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: A model that describes needs in a hierarchy, from basic physiological needs to self-actualization.
  • Perception: How individuals select, organize, and interpret information.
    • Selective Attention: Consumers filter out most information, focusing on what's relevant.
    • Selective Distortion: Consumers interpret information in a way that supports their existing beliefs.
    • Selective Retention: Consumers retain information that confirms their attitudes.
  • Learning: Changes in behavior arising from experience.
    • Drive: Internal stimulus motivating behavior.
    • Cues: External signals that trigger a response.
    • Response: The consumer's reaction.
    • Reinforcement: Strengthening the response.
  • Beliefs and Attitudes: Thoughts and consistent evaluations that shape preferences and buying choices.

Types of Buying Decision Behavior

• Complex Buying Behavior: High involvement and significant differences between brands, often for expensive or important products.
• Dissonance-Reducing Buying Behavior: High involvement, but few perceived differences between brands, leading to cognitive dissonance after purchase.
• Habitual Buying Behavior: Low involvement and minimal brand differences, common for everyday items.
• Variety-Seeking Buying Behavior: Low involvement, but significant perceived differences between brands, driven by a desire for variety rather than dissatisfaction.

Buyer Decision Process

• Need Recognition: The trigger for the buying process, starting with a perceived need.
• Information Search: Seeking information on the product from sources like personal, commercial, public, or experiential.
• Evaluation of Alternatives: Consumers assess different options based on criteria like brand reputation, quality, and price.
• Purchase Decision: Making a choice, potentially influenced by factors like others' opinions.
• Post-Purchase Behavior: Reflecting on the purchase, influenced by the alignment of expectations with the product's performance.
  • Cognitive Dissonance: Post-purchase discomfort due to conflicting expectations and reality, leading to a need for reassurance.