What is Consumer Buying Behavior?

Definition of Buying Behavior:

The study of how and why people purchase goods and services is termed consumer buying
behavior. Buying Behavior is the decision processes and acts of people involved in buying and
using products.

Need to understand: Understanding the buying behaviour of its customers is crucial to a firm's
success. The firm that can anticipate how its potential customers will respond to its marketing
strategies will have a competitive advantage.

 why consumers make the purchases that they make?

 what factors influence consumer purchases?
 the changing factors in our society.

Consumer Buying Behavior refers to the buying behavior of the ultimate consumer. A firm needs
to analyze buying behavior for:

 Buyers reactions to a firms marketing strategy has a great impact on the firms success.
 The marketing concept stresses that a firm should create a Marketing Mix (MM) that
satisfies (gives utility to) customers, therefore need to analyze the what, where, when and
how consumers buy.
 Marketers can better predict how consumers will respond to marketing strategies.

Types of Consumer Buying Behavior-four types of consumer buying behavior: complex

buying behavior, dissonance-reducing buying behavior, habitual buying behavior, and variety-
seeking buying behavior. These four types are based on whether the consumer has high or low
involvement in the purchase and whether there are many or few significant differences among
the brands.

Types of consumer buying behavior are determined by:

 Level of Involvement in purchase decision. Importance and intensity of interest in a

product in a particular situation.
 Buyers level of involvement determines why he/she is motivated to seek information
about a certain products and brands but virtually ignores others.
o Buying Behavior
 Complex buying behavior - high involvement, significant difference
among brands
 Dissonance-reducing buying behavior - high involvement, little or no
perceived difference among brands. Purchase is fairly quick.
 Habitual buying behavior - low involvement, little or no brand difference
 Variety-seeking buying behavior - low involvement but perceived
significant brand differences. May occur to relieve boredom.
 Types of Buying Decision Behavior

We have often seen that there are some purchases which require a lot of time and information to
make. On the other hand there are also buying decisions which can be made with out taking time
and consulting others. In this way, consumer buying behavior is broadly divided into four parts
on the basis of the extent of buyer involvement and the extent of differences among brands. The
explanation of four types is given and explained below.

 Complex buying Behavior

When the consumers are highly involved in a purchase and observe significant differences
between the brands then the consumers undertake complex buying behavior. Such type of
behavior occurs when the customer is trying to buy a product which is risky, expensive, and is
purchased infrequently such as cars, computers, house etc. Therefore in order to make final
decision, the customer tries to learn more about the product such as product features, attributes,
quality, durability, reliability etc. For this purpose, the customer seeks information from various
sources such as print media and electronic media and develops a particular belief and attitude
towards the product. He only makes the final purchase decision when he is fully satisfied.
Therefore it is very important for the marketers of high-involvement products to understand the
information gathering and evaluation processes of customers. Marketers should also help the
customers to easily gather information about the products of company and they should also
differentiate their products from the competitors.

 
 Dissonance-Reducing Buying Behavior

Consumers undertake dissonance-reducing buying behavior when they are highly involved in a
purchase and observe insignificant differences between the brands. Such type of buying behavior
occurs when the product is expensive, risky and is purchased infrequently but the differences
between the brands are insignificant. It means that the customer can purchase product from any
anywhere without considering the brand. For example the consumer buying furniture will
observe dissonance-reducing buying behavior because on one hand the product is expensive
whereas on the hand it is in the given price range.

 Habitual Buying Behavior

If the involvement of consumers is low and they perceive few differences among the brands, then
the consumers undertake habitual buying behavior. Such type of behavior occurs when the
consumers buy low cost, frequently purchased products. For example, purchase of milk, bread,
salt etc requires low consumer involvement and does not contain significant differences between
brands. In such cases, brand loyalty does not occur and consumers only purchase products of
particular brand because of their familiarity. For this purpose, customers do not gather
information for the brand. Therefore marketers have to increase the familiarity of their products
with the help of attractive prices and sales promotion.

 Variety-Seeking Buying Behavior

Variety-seeking buying behavior occurs in a situation of low consumer involvement but

significant brand differences. For example, purchase of shoes, soaps, detergents, etc. Customers
try to use different brands of such products because they want to check variety of products. This
is the reason that most of the consumers do a lot of brand switching in case of variety-seeking
buying behavior. Under such circumstances, both leaders and challengers have to adopt different
strategies to attract the customers. For example leaders have to adopt the strategy of encouraging
the habitual buying behavior with the help of extensive advertisement and dominating shelf
space. Whereas challengers have to encourage the variety-seeking buying behavior by offering
products at low prices, providing free sample and special discounts etc.