Chapter 6 Class Notes

Contents of Chapter 6 Class Notes

 What is Consumer Buying Behavior?

 Stages of Consumer Buying Behavior?

 Types of Consumer Buying Behavior.

 Categories That Effect Consumer Buying Behavior.

o Personal

o Psychological

o Social

 Please Email alex@udel.edu any comments

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What is Consumer Buying Behavior?

Definition of Buying Behavior:

Buying Behavior is the decision processes and acts of people involved in buying and using products.

Need to understand:

 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.

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Stages of the Consumer Buying Process

Six Stages to the Consumer Buying Decision Process (For complex decisions). Actual purchasing is
only one stage of the process. Not all decision processes lead to a purchase. All consumer decisions
do not always include all 6 stages, determined by the degree of complexity...discussed next.

The 6 stages are:

1. Problem Recognition(awareness of need)--difference between the desired state and the

actual condition. Deficit in assortment of products. Hunger--Food. Hunger stimulates your
need to eat.
Can be stimulated by the marketer through product information--did not know you were
deficient? I.E., see a commercial for a new pair of shoes, stimulates your recognition that
you need a new pair of shoes.

2. Information search--

o Internal search, memory.

o External search if you need more information. Friends and relatives (word of
mouth). Marketer dominated sources; comparison shopping; public sources etc.

A successful information search leaves a buyer with possible alternatives, the evoked set.

Hungry, want to go out and eat, evoked set is

o chinese food

o indian food

o burger king

o klondike kates etc

3. Evaluation of Alternatives--need to establish criteria for evaluation, features the buyer wants
or does not want. Rank/weight alternatives or resume search. May decide that you want to
eat something spicy, indian gets highest rank etc.
If not satisfied with your choice then return to the search phase. Can you think of another
restaurant? Look in the yellow pages etc. Information from different sources may be treated
differently. Marketers try to influence by "framing" alternatives.

4. Purchase decision--Choose buying alternative, includes product, package, store, method of

purchase etc.

5. Purchase--May differ from decision, time lapse between 4 & 5, product availability.

6. Post-Purchase Evaluation--outcome: Satisfaction or Dissatisfaction. Cognitive Dissonance,

have you made the right decision. This can be reduced by warranties, after sales
 communication etc.
After eating an indian meal, may think that really you wanted a chinese meal instead.

Handout...Pillsbury 1-800#s

1-800 #s gives the consumer a way of communicating with the marketer after purchase. This helps
reduce cognitive dissonance when a marketer can answer any concerns of a new consumer.
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Types of Consumer Buying Behavior

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.

High involvement purchases--Honda Motorbike, high priced goods, products visible to others, and
the higher the risk the higher the involvement. Types of risk:

 Personal risk

 Social risk

 Economic risk

The four type of consumer buying behavior are:

 Routine Response/Programmed Behavior--buying low involvement frequently purchased

low cost items; need very little search and decision effort; purchased almost automatically.
Examples include soft drinks, snack foods, milk etc.

 Limited Decision Making--buying product occasionally. When you need to obtain

information about unfamiliar brand in a familiar product category, perhaps. Requires a
moderate amount of time for information gathering. Examples include Clothes--know
product class but not the brand.

 Extensive Decision Making/Complex high involvement, unfamiliar, expensive and/or

infrequently bought products. High degree of economic/performance/psychological risk.
Examples include cars, homes, computers, education. Spend alot of time seeking
information and deciding.
Information from the companies MM; friends and relatives, store personnel etc. Go through
all six stages of the buying process.

 Impulse buying, no conscious planning.

The purchase of the same product does not always elicit the same Buying Behavior. Product can shift
from one category to the next.
For example:
Going out for dinner for one person may be extensive decision making (for someone that does not
go out often at all), but limited decision making for someone else. The reason for the dinner,
whether it is an anniversary celebration, or a meal with a couple of friends will also determine the
extent of the decision making.

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Categories that Effect the Consumer Buying Decision Process

A consumer, making a purchase decision will be affected by the following three factors:

1. Personal

2. Psychological

3. Social

The marketer must be aware of these factors in order to develop an appropriate MM for its target
market.
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Personal

Unique to a particular person. Demographic Factors. Sex, Race, Age etc.

Who in the family is responsible for the decision making.
Young people purchase things for different reasons than older people.

Handout...From choices to checkout...

Highlights the differences between male and female shoppers in the supermarket.

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Psychological factors

Psychological factors include:

 Motives--

A motive is an internal energizing force that orients a person's activities toward satisfying a need or
achieving a goal.
Actions are effected by a set of motives, not just one. If marketers can identify motives then they can
better develop a marketing mix.
MASLOW hierarchy of needs!!

o Physiological

o Safety
 o Love and Belonging

o Esteem

o Self Actualization

Need to determine what level of the hierarchy the consumers are at to determine what motivates
their purchases.

Handout...Nutrament Debunked...

Nutrament, a product marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb originally was targeted at consumers that
needed to receive additional energy from their drinks after exercise etc., a fitness drink. It was
therefore targeted at consumers whose needs were for either love and Belonging or esteem. The
product was not selling well, and was almost terminated. Upon extensive research it was
determined that the product did sell well in inner-city convenience stores. It was determined that
the consumers for the product were actually drug addicts who couldn't not digest a regular meal.
They would purchase Nutrament as a substitute for a meal. Their motivation to purchase was
completely different to the motivation that B-MS had originally thought. These consumers were at
the Physiological level of the hierarchy. BM-S therefore had to redesign its MM to better meet the
needs of this target market.
Motives often operate at a subconscious level therefore are difficult to measure.

 Perception--

What do you see?? Perception is the process of selecting, organizing and interpreting information
inputs to produce meaning. IE we chose what info we pay attention to, organize it and interpret it.
Information inputs are the sensations received through sight, taste, hearing, smell and touch.

Selective Exposure-select inputs to be exposed to our awareness. More likely if it is linked to an

event, satisfies current needs, intensity of input changes (sharp price drop).

Selective Distortion-Changing/twisting current received information, inconsistent with beliefs.

Advertisers that use comparative advertisements (pitching one product against another), have to be
very careful that consumers do not distort the facts and perceive that the advertisement was for the
competitor. A current example...MCI and AT&T...do you ever get confused?

Selective Retention-Remember inputs that support beliefs, forgets those that don't.
Average supermarket shopper is exposed to 17,000 products in a shopping visit lasting 30 minutes-
60% of purchases are unplanned. Exposed to 1,500 advertisement per day. Can't be expected to be
aware of all these inputs, and certainly will not retain many.

Interpreting information is based on what is already familiar, on knowledge that is stored in the
memory.

Handout...South Africa wine....

Problems marketing wine from South Africa. Consumers have strong perceptions of the country, and
hence its products.

 Ability and Knowledge--

Need to understand individuals capacity to learn. Learning, changes in a person's behavior caused by
information and experience. Therefore to change consumers' behavior about your product, need to
give them new information re: product...free sample etc.

South Africa...open bottle of wine and pour it!! Also educate american consumers about changes in
SA. Need to sell a whole new country.

When making buying decisions, buyers must process information.

Knowledge is the familiarity with the product and expertise.

Inexperience buyers often use prices as an indicator of quality more than those who have knowledge
of a product.
Non-alcoholic Beer example: consumers chose the most expensive six-pack, because they assume
that the greater price indicates greater quality.

Learning is the process through which a relatively permanent change in behavior results from the
consequences of past behavior.

 Attitudes--

Knowledge and positive and negative feelings about an object or activity-maybe tangible or
intangible, living or non- living.....Drive perceptions

Individual learns attitudes through experience and interaction with other people.
Consumer attitudes toward a firm and its products greatly influence the success or failure of the
firm's marketing strategy.

Handout...Oldsmobile.....

Oldsmobile vs. Lexus, due to consumers attitudes toward Oldsmobile (as discovered by class
exercise) need to disassociate Aurora from the Oldsmobile name.

Exxon Valdez-nearly 20,000 credit cards were returned or cut-up after the tragic oil spill.

Honda "You meet the nicest people on a Honda", dispel the unsavory image of a motorbike rider,
late 1950s. Changing market of the 1990s, baby boomers aging, Hondas market returning to hard
core. To change this they have a new slogan "Come ride with us".

Attitudes and attitude change are influenced by consumers personality and lifestyle.

Consumers screen information that conflicts with their attitudes. Distort information to make it
consistent and selectively retain information that reinforces our attitudes. IE brand loyalty.

There is a difference between attitude and intention to buy (ability to buy).

  Personality--

all the internal traits and behaviors that make a person unique, uniqueness arrives from a person's
heredity and personal experience. Examples include:

o Workaholism

o Compulsiveness

o Self confidence

o Friendliness

o Adaptability

o Ambitiousness

o Dogmatism

o Authoritarianism

o Introversion

o Extroversion

o Aggressiveness

o Competitiveness.

Traits effect the way people behave. Marketers try to match the store image to the perceived image
of their customers.

There is a weak association between personality and Buying Behavior, this may be due to unreliable
measures. Nike ads. Consumers buy products that are consistent with their self concept.

 Lifestyles--

Recent US trends in lifestyles are a shift towards personal independence and individualism and a
preference for a healthy, natural lifestyle.

Lifestyles are the consistent patterns people follow in their lives.

EXAMPLE healthy foods for a healthy lifestyle. Sun tan not considered fashionable in US until 1920's.
Now an assault by the American Academy of Dermatology.

Handout...Here Comes the Sun to Confound Health Savvy Lotion Makers..

Extra credit assignment from the news group, to access Value and Lifestyles (VALS) Program,
complete the survey and Email alex@udel.edu the results. This is a survey tool that marketers can
use to better understand their target market(s).
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Social Factors

Consumer wants, learning, motives etc. are influenced by opinion leaders, person's family, reference
groups, social class and culture.

 Opinion leaders--

Spokespeople etc. Marketers try to attract opinion leaders...they actually use (pay) spokespeople to
market their products. Michael Jordon (Nike, McDonalds, Gatorade etc.)

Can be risky...Michael Jackson...OJ Simpson...Chevy Chase

 Roles and Family Influences--

Role...things you should do based on the expectations of you from your position within a group.
People have many roles.
Husband, father, employer/ee. Individuals role are continuing to change therefore marketers must
continue to update information.

Family is the most basic group a person belongs to. Marketers must understand:

o that many family decisions are made by the family unit

o consumer behavior starts in the family unit

o family roles and preferences are the model for children's future family (can
reject/alter/etc)

o family buying decisions are a mixture of family interactions and individual decision
making

o family acts an interpreter of social and cultural values for the individual.

The Family life cycle: families go through stages, each stage creates different consumer demands:

o bachelor stage...most of BUAD301

o newly married, young, no children...me

o full nest I, youngest child under 6

o full nest II, youngest child 6 or over

o full nest III, older married couples with dependant children

 o empty nest I, older married couples with no children living with them, head in labor
force

o empty nest II, older married couples, no children living at home, head retired

o solitary survivor, in labor force

o solitary survivor, retired

o Modernized life cycle includes divorced and no children.

Handout...Two Income Marriages Are Now the Norm

Because 2 income families are becoming more common, the decision maker within the family unit is
changing...also, family has less time for children, and therefore tends to let them influence purchase
decisions in order to alleviate some of the guilt. (Children influence about $130 billion of goods in a
year) Children also have more money to spend themselves.

 Reference Groups--

Individual identifies with the group to the extent that he takes on many of the values, attitudes or
behaviors of the group members.

Families, friends, sororities, civic and professional organizations.

Any group that has a positive or negative influence on a persons attitude and behavior.
Membership groups (belong to)
Affinity marketing is focused on the desires of consumers that belong to reference groups.
Marketers get the groups to approve the product and communicate that approval to its members.
Credit Cards etc.!!

Aspiration groups (want to belong to)

Disassociate groups (do not want to belong to)
Honda, tries to disassociate from the "biker" group.

The degree to which a reference group will affect a purchase decision depends on an individuals
susceptibility to reference group influence and the strength of his/her involvement with the group.

 Social Class--

an open group of individuals who have similar social rank. US is not a classless society. US criteria;
occupation, education, income, wealth, race, ethnic groups and possessions.

Social class influences many aspects of our lives. IE upper middle class Americans prefer luxury cars
Mercedes.

o Upper Americans-upper-upper class, .3%, inherited wealth, aristocratic names.

o Lower-upper class, 1.2%, newer social elite, from current professionals and
corporate elite
 o Upper-middle class, 12.5%, college graduates, managers and professionals

o Middle Americans-middle class, 32%, average pay white collar workers and blue
collar friends

o Working class, 38%, average pay blue collar workers

o Lower Americans-lower class, 9%, working, not on welfare

o Lower-lower class, 7%, on welfare

Social class determines to some extent, the types, quality, quantity of products that a person buys or
uses.

Lower class people tend to stay close to home when shopping, do not engage in much prepurchase
information gathering.
Stores project definite class images.

Family, reference groups and social classes are all social influences on consumer behavior. All
operate within a larger culture.

 Culture and Sub-culture--

Culture refers to the set of values, ideas, and attitudes that are accepted by a homogenous group of
people and transmitted to the next generation.

Culture also determines what is acceptable with product advertising. Culture determines what
people wear, eat, reside and travel. Cultural values in the US are good health, education,
individualism and freedom. In american culture time scarcity is a growing problem. IE change in
meals. Big impact on international marketing.

Handout...Will British warm up to iced tea?

No...but that is my opinion!!...Tea is a part of the British culture, hot with milk.

Different society, different levels of needs, different cultural values.

Culture can be divided into subcultures:

o geographic regions

o human characteristics such as age and ethnic background.

IE West Coast, teenage and Asian American.

Culture effects what people buy, how they buy and when they buy.

Understanding Consumer Buying Behavior offers consumers greater satisfaction (Utility). We must
assume that the company has adopted the Marketing Concept and are consumer oriented.
Why Study Consumer Behaviour ?
In the highly specialised study of "BUSINESS MANAGEMENT", "BUSINESS
ADMINISTRATION" or just "MANAGEMENT" today, "MARKETING MANAGEMENT"
function plays a very critical role. This is because this functional area of management (1)
"EARNS" the revenue, & (2) "WORKS" in the close proximity with the public or persons
outside the organisation. Controlling these two attributes to have the desired benefits are the
most difficult part of the management, because none of these two are within the direct control
of the marketers. This doesn't mean that the other functional areas are not useful, but they are
not "DIRECTLY" involved in the activities mentioned above.

Similarly, within the study of Marketing Management, the "Consumers" or the "Customers"
play a very critical role as these are the people who finally BUY the goods & services of the
organisation, and the firm is always on the move to make them buy so as to earn revenue. It's
crucial from both the points of view as given below :

1. From the customers' point of view : Customers today are in a tough spot. Today, in
the highly developed & technologically advanced society, the customers have a great
deal of choices & options (and often very close & competing) to decide on.
2.
1. They have the products of an extreme range of attributes (the 1st P - Product),
2. they have a wide range of cost and payment choices (the 2nd P - Price),
3. they can order them to be supplied to their door step or anywhere else (the 3rd
P - Place),
4. and finally they are bombarded with more communications from more
channels than ever before (the 4th P - Promotion).

How can they possibly decide where to spend their time and money, and where they should
give their loyalty ?

1. From the marketers' point of view : "The purpose of marketing is to sell more stuff to
more people more often for more money in order to make more profit". This is the
basic principle of requirement for the marketers in earlier days where aggressive
selling was the aim. Now it can't be achieved by force, aggression or plain alluring.
For the customers are today more informed, more knowledgeable, more demanding,
more discerning. And above all there is no dearth of marketers to buy from. The
marketers have to earn them or win them over.

The global marketplace is a study in diversity, diversity among consumers, producers,

marketers, retailers, advertising media, cultures, and customs and of course the individual or
psychological behaviour. However, despite prevailing diversity, there also are many
similarities. The object of the study of consumer behaviour is to provide conceptual and
technical tools to enable the marketer to apply them to marketing practice, both profit & non-
profit.

The study of consumer behaviour (CB) is very important to the marketers because it enables
them to understand and predict buying behaviour of consumers in the marketplace; it is
concerned not only with what consumers buy, but also with why they buy it, when and where
and how they buy it, and how often they buy it, and also how they consume it & dispose it.
Consumer research is the methodology used to study consumer behaviour; it takes place at
every phase of the consumption process: before the purchase, during the purchase, and after
the purchase. Research shows that two different buyers buying the same product may have
done it for different reasons, paid different prices, used in different ways, have different
emotional attachments towards the things and so on.

According to Professor Theodore Levitt of the Harvard Business School, the study of
Consumer Behaviour is one of the most important in business education, because the purpose
of a business is to create and keep customers. Customers are created and maintained through
marketing strategies. And the quality of marketing strategies depends on knowing, serving,
and influencing consumers. In other words, the success of a business is to achieve
organisational objectives, which can be done by the above two methods. This suggests that
the knowledge & information about consumers is critical for developing successful marketing
strategies because it challenges the marketers to think about and analyse the relationship
between the consumers & marketers, and the consumer behaviour & the marketing strategy.

Consumer behaviour is interdisciplinary; that is, it is based on concepts and theories about
people that have been developed by scientists, philosophers & researchers in such diverse
disciplines as psychology, sociology, social psychology, cultural anthropology, and
economics. The main objective of the study of consumer behaviour is to provide marketers
with the knowledge and skills, that are necessary to carry out detailed consumer analyses
which could be used for understanding markets and developing marketing strategies. Thus,
consumer behaviour researchers with their skills for the naturalistic settings of the market are
trying to make a major contribution to our understanding of human thinking in general.

The study of consumer behaviour helps management understand consumers' needs so as to

recognise the potential for the trend of development of change in consumer requirements and
new technology. And also to articulate the new thing in terms of the consumers' needs so that
it will be accepted in the market well.

The following are a few examples of the benefits of the study of consumer behaviour derived
by the different categories of people :

1. A marketing manager would like to know how consumer behaviour will help him to
design better marketing plans to get those plans accepted within the company.
2. In a non-profit service organisation, such as a hospital, an individual in the marketing
department would like to know the patients' needs and how best to serve those needs.
3. Universities & Colleges now recognise that they need to know about consumer
behaviour to aid in recruiting students. "Marketing Admissions" has become an
accepted term to mean marketing to potential students.

Consumer behaviour has become an integral part of strategic market planning. It is also the
basis of the approach to the concept of Holistic Marketing. (See the article on "HOLISTIC
MARKETING " written by the author). The belief that ethics and social responsibility should
also be integral components of every marketing decision is embodied in a revised marketing
concept - the societal marketing concept - which calls on marketers to fulfil the needs of their
target markets in ways that improve society as a whole.

Introduction to Consumer Behaviour

The study of Consumer Behaviour is quite complex, because of many variables involved and
their tendency to interact with & influence each other. These variables are divided into three
major sections that have been identified as the most important general influences on
Consumer Behaviour. Imagine three concentric circles, one at the outer most, one in the
middle & one at the inner most, and they represent the following :

1. External Environmental Variables Influencing Behaviour : These are the factors

controlled by external environments like the following form the basis of external
influences over the mind of a customer (outer circle) :
2.
1. Culture, and Sub-culture,
2. Social Class, and Social Group,
3. Family, and Inter-Personal Influences,
4. Other Influences (which are not categorised by any of the above six, like
geographical, political, economical, religious environment, etc.).

1. Individual Determinants of Behaviour : Major individual determinants of Consumer

Behaviour are portrayed in the middle ring. These are the human mind and its
attributes. These variables are personal in nature and they are influenced by the above
set of external factors and in turn influence the way consumers proceed thro' a
decision making process regarding products & services. They are :
2.
1. Personality & Self-concept,
2. Motivation & Involvement,
3. Perception & Information Processing,
4. Learning & Memory,
5. Attitudes.
6. Problem Recognition,
7. Information Search,
8. Evaluation of Application,
9. Purchase Decision,
10. Post-Purchase Behaviour.
3. The Consumer Decision Making Process : The buying decision comes as a product of
the complex interaction of the external factors and the personal attributes. The inner
most circle denotes the consumer decision making process regarding products &
services, whose major steps are :
Marketers are frequently uncertain about the variables that are at play influencing & affecting
consumers. Sometimes this occurs because they don't clearly understand the extent of
variables that might be having an influence. The details of all external, internal,
environmental, economical etc. are discussed above. Sometimes some variables are not
directly observable. Other times variables are known to the marketers but their exact nature &
relative strength of influence is not apparent. In these circumstances, it is useful to understand
the above mentioned concepts and how the consumers behave, so that their decision making
process can be predicted to a reasonable extent. The human mind being as complex as it is,
the understanding of the buying behaviour of the consumers becomes a continuous activity of
application of various theories & concepts by the marketers.

The Consumer Behaviour Theory

An understanding of how the theory of consumer behaviour and its application tools evolved
over the years will enable us to appreciate the validity of the theory and give us a guidance in
its practical application. Consumer behaviour, like all human behaviour is very complex. But
the consumer behaviour theory, like all theories is a simplified & abstract representation of
reality. The more simplified picture of consumers provided by the theory helps us
enormously to understand the consumers. It not only helps us to think about consumers, but
also provides us with a language to talk about them. This language is very useful, because to
be effective in an organisation - for profit or non-profit - one has to persuade others to accept
his ideas. And in fact, lack of this language has been one of the greatest drawback of the
modern marketers.

Market Research or Marketing Research (MR) has been developing since "MARKETING"
which brings together all customer elements, grew out of the concept of "SALES" in the early
fifties. The theory of consumer behaviour draws heavily upon the famous psychologist
Sigmund Freud, particularly with respect to the emotional, psychological, mental, subjective
or non-utilitarian aspects of buying decision or behaviour of a consumer. The theory
represents the hidden order in this very complex activity, which we call consumer behaviour.
On the surface, this highly complex & varied display of behaviour by consumers seems
essentially unexplained. But slowly as the theory develops, the hidden pattern emerges,
describing the order we suddenly see, and explaining why the behaviour pattern takes place.

Now, what is the magic stuff called consumer behaviour theory that does all these wonderful
things. It's not just a theory, as explained earlier, but more than that. It helps us to make better
marketing decisions for profit & non-profit organisations. Thus we can examine the
characteristics of a theory that enables us to do so. Researchers G Zaltman and M Wallendorf
have came out with the most important attributes of a good & sound theory, after very close
and careful thought. These are the following :

1. A theory which does both : explains how consumers buy & predicts what consumers
will buy.
2. It unifies previously unrelated areas of knowledge, for example, it relates to
information that consumers get from advertising so as to decide what brands they buy.
3. The theory is simple. If not, it can be so complex that we can't understand well
enough to apply it to our practical problems.
4. It is testable so that we can verify whether the theory is valid and therefore
dependable.
 5. Implied in the previous characteristic, it is supported by the facts. This means, to lay
the theory up against data describing how consumers buy in the market and thereby
determine if the facts confirm the theory. If they don't, then either the theory should
be modified till the facts do verify it or abandon the theory.
6. The theory is general, which means that it can be applied to a wide range of products
& services. If it is not, then it won't be very useful.
7. It has heuristic value, meaning that it poses new questions for us that had not been
previously asked. While trying to answer these questions, new knowledge is created
and that becomes the part of the theory.
8. It is internally consistent. This means that the theory is internally free from logical
incongruencies or else the prediction will be doubtful & flawed. Lack of this quality
will make the theory a dangerous tool.
9. It is original. If not, it adds little to the existing knowledge.
10. It is plausible. If not, it can't be seen by others as making any sense, and hence, they
will not likely to accept the theory and so it won't be useful.
11. And if all the above ten points are in order, then it can be applied to designing
marketing strategy and marketing plans.

Definitions :

Consumer Behaviour (or Buyer Behaviour) is broadly defined by various scholars &
researchers as :

1. It's the behaviour displayed by the consumers during the acquisition, consumption and
disposition of products, services, time and ideas by decision making units.
2. It is the body of knowledge which studies various aspects of purchase and
consumption of products and services by individuals with various social and
psychological variables at play.
3. The behaviour that the consumers display in searching for, purchasing, using,
evaluating and disposing of products and services that they expect will satisfy their
needs.
4. The process and activities people engage in when searching for, selecting, purchasing,
using, evaluating, and disposing of products and services so as to satisfy their needs
and desires.
5. The activities directly involved in obtaining, consuming, and disposing of products
and services, including the decision processes that precede and follow these actions.
6. The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines consumer behaviour as "The
dynamic interaction of cognition, behaviour & environmental events by which human
beings conduct the exchange aspect of their lives.

The study of consumer behaviour involves search, evaluation, purchase, consumption and
post purchase behaviour of the consumers and includes the disposal of purchased products
keeping environment and personal characteristics in mind.

Key Words :

Users Customers Internal Factors Consumer Research Buyers Consumers External Factors
Problem Recognition Culture Social Class Holistic Marketing Social Responsibility Memory
Involvement Purchase Decision Marketing Admission Attitude Sub-Culture Societal
Marketing Consumer Behaviour Learning Social Group Information Search Environmental
Influence Motivation Self-Concept Marketing Strategy Evaluation of Application Perception
Marketing Plan Personal Attributes Post-purchase Behaviour