Q1: Explain the following consumer buying behaviours with appropriate examples and

categories where consumers demonstrate them.

a) Picking Buying Behaviour: Picking Buying Behaviour says when a consumer selects
from a variety of options. He/she has to pick one best option by filtering all the existing
options & at the same time he/she does the same thing again and again to get the best
product out of it by using the diversification concept.
We can take an example of the case of FMCG sector where the consumer has many
options from where they can select one. In this each time a consumer purchases one
best product and the next time he/she purchases another type of product by filtering the
existing options. It doesn’t mean that he/she doesn’t like the product but it means he/she
wants a different variety of product. Every time the customer makes a comparison and
get the best product rather than purchasing the same product again and again.
Example: A consumer buys a biscuit of one brand and next time when he/she buys a
biscuit of other brand or another variety from the same brand. This is called picking
buying behaviour.
b) Impulse Buying Behaviour: It is defined as the tendency of a consumer to buy goods
or services without planning. Such buying decisions are triggered by emotions and
feelings, as the customer decides to buy the product or service at the nick of the time.
As we know, impulsive buying is based on irrational thinking, hence it can't be
categorized for one specific product category. We can see this buying behaviour of the
customer, during the purchase of products like chocolates, clothes, mobile phones and
sometimes in high-end items such as cars, jewellery etc. Impulsive buying means
making an unplanned purchase. Hence, the salesman tries to tap this particular
behaviour of the customers to boost his/her sales figures. For example, while entering
a super-market, there is a greater chance that a person or customer, who has no intention
of buying anything, ends up buying something or the other. Many sectors, starting from
the fashion apparel to cosmetics, extending up to the smart-phones market even, tend
to exploit this behaviour of the customers, and try to sell their products to the customers,
to achieve their sales figure.
c) Sub-contracte d Buying Behaviour: Subcontract buying is the process where the part
of any task or any project is assigned to any other fresh party for the completion of that
project in a time-bound manner. It is mainly prevalent in the complex project like
construction work or any big IT project is going on.
For example, Govt. wanted to construct a bridge, so it gave to any private player on the
contract basis for a specific period for completion. But if that project requires some
technical specialization then the contractor further hire any specialized agency for the
specific part of the project that is called as the sub-contracting. In the marketing field,
it is mainly used in the infra-projects or any construction project.
d) Legalist Buying Behaviour: Legalistic buying behaviour includes the low
involvement purchases. It requires approval from the external sources to complete the
buying process. These are usually inexpensive products and possessed low-risk
category items. We can take the example of Helmets in this category. While purchasing
a helmet we need approval from the person we know or from the owner itself.
e) Problem-solving Buying Behaviour: Problem-solving buying behaviour is depended
upon the involvement of the customer with the product. Someone’s interest to have a
particular product category determines the type of problem-solving approach used.
 There are three types of problem-solving behaviours available in this category. These
are: Limited Problem solving, Extended problem-solving and routinized response
behaviour. Purchase in problem-solving is of more importance. Routinized problem
solving involves the buying of daily low priced products. Limited problem-solving
buying behaviour occurs when we purchase products occasionally. Extended problem
solving is used in case of complex and high priced products. Brands are perceived to
be different in this buying category. Examples of categories where we see problem-
solving buying behaviour are: Consumer durables and Automobiles. There is a high
degree of uncertainty involved in this process.
f) Heuristic Buying Behaviour: Heuristic in literal meaning is something that is self-
discovered & enables people to figure out themselves. In Heuristic buying behaviour,
people involved in low involvement decision making mostly rely on the mental
shortcuts that make it easy for them to buy something quickly or to take any decision.
Different types of heuristic are-
o Availability heuristic- Here, customers buy something that comes immediately
to their mind. For example, if one sees news reports about the COVID cases
rising, they might make a judgement that COVID is very fatal & everyone is
prone to it so they are quick in buying the sanitisers or masks that immediately
comes to their mind.
o Representativeness heuristic- Here, people decide on things comparing it to the
similar situations to a representative example. For example, when customers
buy toothpaste they think of the ads where healthy, doctors recommended
toothpaste are shown, so they prefer to buy those type of toothpaste that are
medicinal.
Anchoring heuristic- Here, people mostly rely on the 1st information or the pre-existing
information they have while purchasing. They tend to accept that information as a basis
to buy things. For example, people now buy most of the sanitizers by seeing the level
of alcohol it has because they have in mind that a certain percentage of alcohol is
effective. So they don’t see much whether the sanitizer is glycerine one or Ayurvedic.
g) Habitual Buying Behaviour: In this type of buying behaviour, consumer buy products
that they use in their daily life so the level of involvement in the buying decision is
minimum. They don’t see any differences between the brands when buying something,
they just go & buy it. Here brand loyalty doesn’t come into play much. This type of
buying behaviour is generally influenced by the ads, media etc. so rather than brand
loyalty, brand familiarity comes into play. For example, while buying milk we don’t
judge much and we simply buy the one that we are habituated with.