Consumer Markets and Buyer Behavior

Consumer Markets and Buyer Behavior

• Consumer buyer behavior is the purchasing habits of individuals and households buying goods and services for personal use.
• Consumer markets comprise all individuals and households buying or acquiring products for personal consumption.

Learning Objectives

• Objective 1: Define the consumer market and construct a simple model of consumer buyer behavior.
• Objective 2: Explore the four major factors influencing consumer buyer behavior.
• Objective 3: List and define the stages in the buyer decision process and categorize buying decision types.
• Objective 4: Describe the adoption and diffusion process for new products.

Model of Consumer Behavior

• The process involves: marketing stimuli, economic, technological, social, and cultural factors affecting consumer decisions; which are then processed in the 'buyer's black box'; and finally result in buying attitudes and purchasing.

Buyer's Black Box

• Consumer decision-making is complex and difficult to observe directly.
• Understanding the 'why' of buying behavior is a significant focus for marketers.

Characteristics Affecting Consumer Behavior

• Cultural Factors:

  • Culture: Shared values, perceptions, wants, and behaviors.
  • Subculture: Groups within a culture with shared values, experiences and situations (e.g., Hispanic Americans, Black Americans).

• Social Factors:

  • Groups and social networks: Reference groups, opinion leaders, word-of-mouth influence, influencer marketing, online social networks.
  • Family: Most important buying organization in society.
  • Roles and status: A person's position in a group affects buying behavior.

• Personal Factors: - Age and life-cycle stage: Tastes in food, clothing, furniture, and recreation change with age. - Occupation: Affects the goods and services purchased. - Economic situation: Trends in spending, personal income, savings and interest rates. - Lifestyle: A person's pattern of living expressed in psychographics. - Personality and self-concept: Unique psychological traits distinguishing individuals.

• Psychological Factors:

  • Motivation: A need that drives a person to seek satisfaction.
  • Perception: How people select, organize, and interpret information. - Learning: Change in behavior from experience (drives, stimuli, cues, responses, and reinforcement).
  • Beliefs and attitudes: Descriptive thoughts; consistent evaluative aspects, feelings, and tendencies toward ideas or objects.

The Buyer Decision Process

• Stages: Need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, postpurchase behavior.
• Need recognition: Triggered by internal or external stimuli.
• Information search: Consumers search for more info (personal, commercial, public, experiential).
• Alternative evaluation: Consumers evaluate alternative brands.
• Purchase decision: The decision on which brand to buy.
• Postpurchase behavior: Consumers' actions after purchase (satisfaction or dissatisfaction). This stage includes cognitive dissonance.

Types of Buying Behavior

• Complex buying behavior: High involvement, significant differences between brands (e.g., buying a car).
• Dissonance-reducing buying behavior: High involvement, few differences between brands (e.g., buying an expensive appliance).
• Variety-seeking buying behavior: Low involvement, significant differences between brands (e.g., selecting snacks).
• Habitual buying behavior: Low involvement, few differences between brands (e.g., buying salt or sugar).

Buyer Decision Process for New Products

• Adoption process: Stages from learning about an innovation to regular use (Awareness, Interest, Evaluation, Trial, Adoption).
• Individual differences in innovativeness: Categories of adopters (Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Mainstream, Late Mainstream, and Laggards).
• Factors influencing rate of adoption: Characteristics of the product (Relative advantage, Compatibility, Complexity, Divisibility, Communicability).