Professional Documents
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CONSUMER
BEHAVIOUR
16
CHAPTER - 11
INTRODUCTION
fundamental process that shape behaviour in the area of buying are those that also
much useful for understanding consumers needs attitudes and their brand choice
behaviour. The behaviour aspect of the consumer constitutes a major part of the
marketing man's job. The marketing man is better able to render customer
satisfaction if he can find answers to such questions as why does he buy certain
product at a certain place and in a certain manner'. Marketers use their knowledge
attitude, perception, behaviour etc., Besides there are also factors such as family,
social class, references groups, culture, situation etc., Which influences consumer
behaviour. The interaction between these factors increases the complex nature of
consumer behaviour.
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which includes the actor, the object or the event of attention, and the situation in
which the observation is being carried out2. The major influences relevant to
consumer behaviour emerge from the external environment designed as social and
cultural influences, and the internal states, which are referred to as individual
social class, reference group, family and situation. Advertisement also influences
behaviour interact to such an extent that the familiar "other thins being equal"
assumption can lead to mistaken conclusion. Among the explanatory variables for
the choice process we may list enabling condition (e.g. cash in the enabling
conditions, change information received, income, price etc.) past experience and
Culture
who advance particularly the notion that "the monarch allows himself to be
affecting consumer behaviour is culture. Cultures refer to the norms, beliefs and
customs that are learned from society and lead to common patterns of behaviour-6.
Man's specific wants are wholly determined by his culture. The specific wants of
mature individuals in our society are not rigid and fixed but rather malleable and
be modified and shaped in times by seller's efforts among other dynamic forces'.
behaviour was an economist James Duesenberry. He said "In every case the kinds
of activities in which people engage are culturally determined; nearly all purchases
influence on behaviour is rarely noticed. Yet, culture offers order. Direction and
embraces the whole society9. To better satisfy consumers markets have learned to
Sub-Culture
homogenous values and customs that distinguish them from society. Ethinic age
norms, beliefs and behaviour. Ethinic groups include religions, racial and national
groups. Ethinic groups are considered as a part of sub-cultures when they have a
brands, read same magazines and newspapers and shop in the same type of stores.
sub-culture.
Social Class
Every consumer belongs to one social class or another. This social class
society into a hierarchy of distinct status classes, so that members of each class
have relatively the same status and members of all the other classes have either
Relative wealth, power and prestige are three factors frequently employed
eats, drinks and conducts in a way whereby it is not difficult to make out the social
extent that he is not aware of his constant effort to act in a manner which conforms
to the norms or patterns imposed on him by his social group. This is the reason
why he cannot explain his behaviour or 'causes' for certain actions. This makes
man considerably different from the 'economic man', which he was long
Research has revealed, for e.g. middle class women are more likely to be heavy
Reference Groups
An individual can be member of more than one reference group at the same
having with reference group. Reference groups are those an individual uses (i.e.
difficult to identify which group dominates. One study of brand choice behaviour
According to Henry Assael involved product is likely to reflect the norms and
values of the group. A study by concanougher & Bruce found that reference
group has little effect on low involvement products. Products such as salt, tooth
paste, paper towel and plastic wrap have little visibility and are not relevant to
group norms' 9 .
Family
belongs. It is a primary social group where all the members have personal and
direct association. All family members can assume roles in the actual purchase
process Responsibility for some product and brand decisions generally resides in
Family life cycle also influences consumer behaviour. The term life cycle
refers to the series of chances in the family status of the individual, as he grows
older.
The marriage of a single man causes him to become husband; the birth of
his first child makes him a father. When the children grows up and leaves him his
consumer. Their brand choice is also influenced by their role in the family.
The term situation includes all those factors particular to a time and place of
behaviour.
The consumption situation is the anticipated usage situation for the brand24
availability, price change, competitive deal, displays, sales person influence etc.,
Whether the product is being purchased for self use or for the purpose of giving
the product involvement the less likely it is that situational factors will determine
If the purchase and situation are close in time, then the situation is likely to
influence brand choice. A consumer arranging for a party that evening may
may purchase that brand 26 . But a consumer purchasing for regular consumption
in future is most likely to buy the regular brands only and there is no situational
influence.
consumer behaviour. Let us now see the two internal influences on consumer
the consumer provides marketer with a richer basis for understanding consumer
behaviour27.
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that can be measured. They are represented by two classes of variables life style
and Personality.
Life Style
people spend their time (activities); what they consider important in their
environment (interests); and what they think of themselves and the world around
them (environment)28
Life style affect individual behaviour as a consumer. His brand choice behaviour
is also influenced by life style. For example, upper and middle class women were
found to be somewhat more involved in fashion than their lower class counter
parts. Similarly, the brand choice behaviour of a college student and a middle age
Personality
than life style since personality variable reflect consistent evolving patterns of
also influenced by other factors like culture. Since the personality is a lasting and
general characteristics of individual and also more deep seated it can be assumed
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reasonable, but most studies have shown a weak relationship between personality
The constant increase in the variety of goods offered to him, the growing
tendency to buy more goods on the market rather than produce them at home, the
differentials and the widely differing services offered by stores, all combine to add
to the difficulty of the consumers choice and to stress the importance of his being
have to make many purchasing decisions for satisfying their current and future
needs. An average adult makes several decisions daily regarding, food, clothing,
shelter, transportation, recreation etc. In making these decisions buyers can use
decision process used to purchase many products fall somewhere in between these
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tw0 .
automobiles)
• Problem recognition
• Evaluate alternatives
Problem Recognition
sufficient magnitude between what is perceived as the desired state of affairs and
what is the actual state of affairs, enough to arouse and activate the decision
process "Actual State" refers to the way in which a need is already being met and
"desire state" is the way a person would like for the need to be satisfied.
After recognizing the need for purchasing a product the next step is
which to base a choice. The recollection of past experiences (drawn from long-
term memory storage) might provide the consumer with adequate information for
the present choice. If the consumer has had no prior experience, he or she may
Evaluate Alternatives
There are two broad approaches for evaluating alternatives, I . Brand processing
and 2. Attribute processing. In brand processing the buyer assess one brand at a
alternative brands and examines their several attributes. In attribute processing the
consumer examines a specific attribute and compares several other brands on that
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attribute. Then a second attribute may be selected for compassion, and so on.
By evaluating alternating consumers select one brand for purchase. So, the next
Purchasing Process
location, atmosphere, attributes etc. Inside the store his purchasing behaviour is
displays product shelving, pricing strategy, packaging and personal selling effects.
Consumers make two types of purchase; trial purchases and repeat purchases36.
Research evidence indicates that when consumers purchase a new brand about
which they may be uncertain, they tend to purchase smaller quantities than they
likely to depend on the importance of the product decision and the experience
acquired in using the products. If the product lives upto expectation they will
probably buy it again. If the product is not upto their expectation they will search
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more suitable alternatives. Thus, post purchase behaviour serves as a feed for
further purchases,
Low-Involvement Decision-Making
making. Such situations assume that consumers are highly involved in decision-
making. But, in most of the decision-making situations consumers are not at all
consumer does not consider the product sufficiently important to his or her belief
identify the most favoured one, rather than searching for information she receives
it passively. The consumer sits in front of the T.V. and sees an advertisement for
Vim Cleaning powder that describes it as "cleaning better than other cleaning
powders" the consumer is thinking about anything but cleaning powder. The
advertisement is not proper evaluated. Some bits and pieces of information are
received without any active cognitive process. The need to purchase arouse
simply because the amount of cleaning powder in house is running low. The
consumer purchases Vim cleaning powder in house is running low. The consumer
advertising. The brand is seen on the store shelf and is associated with advertising
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theme produces sufficient stimuli to buy that brand. Under low involvement
neutral since it is not associated with any important benefits tied to self or group
being purchased is frequently purchased and not of much importance for the
purchase risk when the consumer is highly involved, with the product. Habit also
Brand Loyalty
company seeks to have a study group of unwavering customers for its products or
service. Because research suggests that than increase in market share is related to
improved brand loyalty 41 . Thus brands that seek to improve their positions have to
• Biased (non-random)
• With respect to one or more alternative brands out of a set of such brands
This definition suggests that consumers can be loyal towards more than on
brand i.e. multi brand loyal. Brand loyalty not only selects some brands but also
rejects certain brands from a set of alternatives. Brand name may be more
important for some products than for other 43 Users of product vary as to their
such can often be directly observed44 Brand loyalty is one of the most heavily
researched areas of consumer behaviour. But very little is positively known about
it".
ABAABABBABAorlikethis:ABA CBCCABACBA
BCAB
following
consumer has
Consumers are not always brand loyal. They often switch to other brand
Brand Switching
animal it would be absorb to assure that the preferences of any members of any
.) Advertising
interprets different brands of a commodity) e.g. tooth paste as goods which supply
consumers are affected by what others consume and prices of different brands.
dissatisfaction or bored with a product, others because they are more concerned
underlying the dynamics of the market place. Subsequent purchase data can
We cannot conclude that all consumers are brand loyal or disloyal. But,
brand.
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Review Of Literature
recently. Of the few studies make in this area Russell W. Belk 's5° article "An
This article reports an explanation of the amounts and the patterns of variance in
selected purchase context. Situation has been defined for the purpose of the study
as all those factors particular to a time from and place of observation which do not
current behaviour. He selected two consumer products snack and meat in which
situational effects were neither blatant nor impossible to image and situational
,inventories were identified for each product sources of behavioural variances and
patterns of variance were identified for both the products. The results of the
analysis made showed that choice among snack product is dependent upon
for the general attractiveness for each product and a smaller but important role for
and interactions provide nearly half of the explained variance in meat and snack
preferences.
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variation both in brand choice behaviour and attitude. This study measures
attitude and behaviour. Specifically the authors have extended previous research
situations.
situations
The findings of this study support the argument that explicit consideration
In addition, the use of brands in this study demonstrates that situational influence
is not restricted to grossly different product types. The results showed situational
influence is not restricted to grossly different product types. The results showed
consumption situations and Brand attitudes. The objective of the study was to
both brands and situations, the relative importance of the object and situational
variable were assessed. Those situations that consistently interact with attitudinal
consumption situations were used with an aggregated attitude towards the object
The results of the study supports the hypothesis that situations are
needed to explain the circumstances producing specific situations that interact with
theoretically legitimate and potentially useful bases for segmenting demand and
The analytical behavioural and demand analysis justifications for the model
are first presented. The extents to which usage situation or person situation
segments conform to Kotler's three criteria for segmentation were also discussed.
the author Peter R. Dickson such an approach should help marketers assess the
Authors approach differs from much of the consumer research (e.g. brand
identification, multi attribute attitude models, and most categorization studies) that
stored in memory. It also suggests that typical product perception studies might be
incomplete to the extent that they assume subjects "correctly" ascribe meaning to
stimulus products. The article examined this assumption and explored how
concerning how the kind and amount of context affects the meaning people ascribe
to ordinary consumption objects (and label they use to identify those meaning).
Results of those hypotheses tests supports the view that is, in different situations
•:• To examine the predictive ability of the usage situational taxonomy (via
on taxonomy.
To illustrate that when product/services have multiple uses (are suitable for
Show that interactions among situation, person and product factors may be
was made on the effects of price and salesperson expertise on customer purchasing
behaviour. The following two hypotheses were tested for the purpose.
expertise conditions.
consumer's purchasing behaviour. For some products and within specific ranges,
price decisions may be far less important for customer's purchase decisions may
be far less important for customer's purchase decisions than other marketing
variable for example, sales message and the creditability of the communicator.
has discussed the following questions. What do we know about brand choice?
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reinforce the brand choice response? What is the relationship between consumer
Result showed that most recent purchase of the consumer is most likely to
influence brand choice behaviour but it is not the only one, which influence and
brand choice. Many families use a mix of brands of frozen orange juice, because
of the unavailability of specific brands in all the stores, among which the
great amount of time has elapsed since the consumer's last purchase of the
product, the brand he last brought has little influence on his choice of a brand-the
probability of his buying any given brand in this case is approximately equal to the
market share of the brand and most consumers have a low probability of buying
The article title situations and social action: "Applications for markets of
psychology theories and discusses some of the implications for market research. It
which can be applied to different specific situations. The study of the relationship
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consumer behaviour.
practice in the development of new products. This paper examined the wide
behaviour and the review of past studies on situational influence on brand choice
shows that there is considerable scope for research in this area. The present study
I. Sarin & Gopalakrishnan, Marketing in India, Madras, Orient Logmans Ltd., 1969,
PP 1421 55.
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12. David Popenece Sociology, 2'1 edition, New Jersy, Prentice Hall Inc.,
1974, PP.251-58.
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14. William D. Wells, "Seven questions about life style and Psychographics" in
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Washington 1947.
30. Editors of Fortune, Why do people buy? New York, McGrawH ill Inc.
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