Consumer Buying Behaviour

Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad

TOPIC - “Consumer Buying Behaviour”

FINAL DRAFT SUBMITTED IN THE PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE

COURSE TITLED –
Introduction to Marketing

SUBMITTED TO:

Mr. Ram Mohan Mishra

SUBMITTED BY:

Ashish Tyagi
Roll no: IIB2019016
Akshay Anshul

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Consumer Buying Behaviour

Roll no.: IIB2019015

Semester: Third (Second Year)

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the project entitled “Consumer Buying Behaviour” submitted by us at
is a record of bona fide project work carried out by me under the guidance of our mentor Mr.
Ram Mohan Mishra. I further declare that the work reported in this project has not been
submitted and will not be submitted, either in part or in full, for the award of any other degree
or diploma in this university or in any other university.

Ashish Tyagi

Roll no: IIB2019016

Akshay Anshul

Roll no.: IIB2019015

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Consumer Buying Behaviour

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

It is a fact that any research work prepared, compiled or formulated in isolation is

inexplicable to an extent. This research work, although prepared by me, is a culmination of
efforts of a lot of people who remained in veil, who gave their intense support and helped me
in the completion of this project.

Firstly, I am very grateful to my subject teacher Mr Ram Mohan Verma, without the kind
support and help of whom the completion of this project was a herculean task for me. He
donated his valuable time from his busy schedule to help me to complete this project. I would
like to thank him for his valuable suggestions towards the making of this project.

I am highly indebted to my parents and friends for their kind co-operation and encouragement
which helped me in completion of this project. I am also thankful to the library staff of my
college which assisted me in acquiring the sources necessary for the compilation of my
project.

Last but not the least, I would like to thank the Almighty who kept me mentally strong and in
good health to concentrate on my project and to complete it in time.

I thank all of them!

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Consumer Buying Behaviour

Contents
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................5
Chapter 2: Research Methodology.....................................................................................................6
2.1 Research Objective......................................................................................................................6
2.2 Hypothesis...................................................................................................................................6
2.3 Research Questions......................................................................................................................6
2.4 Research Methodology................................................................................................................6
2.5 Scope of Study.............................................................................................................................7
2.6 Limitation of Study......................................................................................................................7
Chapter 3: Consumer Buying Behaviour..........................................................................................8
3.1 Consumer Buying Behaviour.......................................................................................................8
3.2 Types of Consumer Behaviour....................................................................................................8
3.3 Importance of Consumer Buying Behaviour................................................................................9
Chapter 4: Factors affecting Consumer Buying Behaviour...........................................................10
Conclusion..........................................................................................................................................12
References..........................................................................................................................................13

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Consumer Buying Behaviour

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Consumer is a person who purchases a product, consumes it instead of using for any other

commercial purpose. Consumer plays a crucial role in determining about the marketing

strategies of a firm. Marketing is concerned mainly with how the idea behind the product can

be sold to the consumers, how to present that idea so that people could relate to it. Marketing

is not all about selling the product but also about selling idea and intent of the manufacturer

or service provider behind. Studying consumer buying behaviour becomes more than

necessary because its dynamic in nature, it keeps on involving. It is thus a complex process

but the complexity increases when dynamic nature blends with the uncertainty of the human

behaviour. Consumer is a human who’s behaviour is dynamic and uncertain regarding

different products. What he may like in a particular type of product, he might not like the

presence of same thing in another product.

This research paper is concerned with studying the importance of consumer buying

behaviour, what process the firms have adopted to study such behaviour so that they could

represent their product in a manner which would bring satisfaction to the customer and profit

to the firm. Further, the researcher has also tried to show what causes the changes in

consumer buying behaviour and what causes change in such factors too. Also, the research

paper talks about types of consumer behaviour based on the involvement of the consumer in

the purchase decision.

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Consumer Buying Behaviour

Chapter 2: Research Methodology

2.1 Research Objective
The researcher through this research paper would aim to find why consumers as regarded as
the crucial element of marketing and how they effect marketing strategies of business. In
order to reach the desired aim, the following objectives needs to be achieved:

 To understand the importance of consumer in arena of marketing

 To understand how consumer behavior effects marketing

 To understand the factors leading to change in established consumer behavior

2.2 Hypothesis
 Consumer is person who consumes the goods and thus who buys the product. Marketing
strategies are planned according to the recent trends of the market.

 Before adopting any marketing strategy, it is necessary to read the prevalent consumer
behavior in the market.

2.3 Research Questions

The researcher would like to find the answers of following questions through this piece of
work:

1. Who is a consumer?

2. What are the factors determining consumer behavior?

3. Why is it important to read consumer behavior for marketing strategies?

4. What leads to change in consumer behavior over a period of time?

2.4 Research Methodology

The researcher would rely on doctrinal type of research for conducting this particular
research and sources of data used will be both primary and secondary where primary source
of data would include government sites, reports, case study of company etc., and the
secondary source of data would include articles, journal, books, blogs etc. Doctrinal type of
research would help not only in answering the research questions but also in a comparative
analysis of different data which the researcher would study for making this project.

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Consumer Buying Behaviour

2.5 Scope of Study

The research would be helpful in establishing the relationship between consumer and
marketing. It would be helpful for the people of all the all fields be it marketing, technology,
law etc. The research paper would bring clarity regarding the importance of consumer in the
field of management.

2.6 Limitation of Study

The limited resource due to lesser availability of the books, restricts the research to some
extent. Also, since there is limited time to complete the research, this may also, to some
extent, affect the study. The researcher has limited its study to certain extent due to lesser
availability of resources and other academic reservation such as mid semester examination
and online classes. Had the current situation not been struck by the pandemic, the researcher
would have accessed the e-resources and books present in the college library for the purpose
of research. But the researcher with whatever resources present with her has tried her level
best to complete the research with utmost authenticity.

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Consumer Buying Behaviour

Chapter 3: Consumer Buying Behaviour

3.1 Consumer Buying Behaviour
Consumer behaviour is the study of consumers and the processes they use to choose, use
(consume), and dispose of products and services, including consumers’ emotional, mental,
and behavioural responses. Consumer behaviour incorporates ideas from several sciences
including psychology, biology, chemistry, and economics.1

Consumer buying behaviour is concerned with the way a potential consumer would behave.
What he might like and he may dislike. How a consumer will react or how would he perceive
the product is included in the behaviour of the consumer.

3.2 Types of Consumer Behaviour2

Now all the consumers won’t take the product in a same manner which leads to
categorisation of consumer behaviour. Basically, there are 4 types of consumer behaviour
which are as follows:

 Complex Buying Behaviour: When a consumer would buy an expensive product, he

would do a thorough research. In such a behaviour they pass through learning process.
Generally, any person who would buy an expensive product or an unfamiliar product,
he might hesitate before buying and would buy only when he has a certain amount of
knowledge about the product and the alternatives present, which he gets due to his
research.
 Dissonance-Reducing Buying Behaviour: This behaviour of consumer is seen when
there is low availability of choices with less significance differences among the
brands. In such case consumers try to make choice which is easily available.
Consumer has high involvement during the purchase.
 Habitual Buying Behaviour: when a consumer has very low involvement in buying
decision and is perceiving only significant brands. This behaviour is seen when one
buys a brand which he is using in his daily routine
 Variety Seeking Behaviour: The consumer does a lot of brand switching and the cost
of switching such brand is low too. Brands might need to adopt different strategies at
times with such type of consumers.

1
https://www.omniconvert.com/blog/consumer-behavior-in-marketing-patterns-types-segmentation.html
2
https://clootrack.com/knowledge_base/types-of-consumer-behavior/?amp

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Consumer Buying Behaviour

3.3 Importance of Consumer Buying Behaviour

According to a Salesforce report3, 76% of consumers expect companies to understand their
needs and expectations. Most successful firms build their strategies keeping their consumer in
mind what they really want. Following are the importance of studying consumer buying
behavior in marketing:

 An analysis of consumer behaviour reveals how the consumer will percieve

about the product, the alternatives present.
 It would also tell what is the prevalent environment of consumer behaviour. If
there is any change or not and if yes then what is that change.
 It also tells, the cause behind the change in consumer behaviour. It is more
important than just merely knowing about the existence of change because the
cause can be used by the marketing firms in a positive direction, to make the
product relatable to consumer.

3
https://www.salesforce.com/research/customer-expectations/

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Consumer Buying Behaviour

Chapter 4: Factors affecting Consumer Buying Behaviour

Consumer buying behaviour is dynamic which means it keeps on changing and such change
is uncertain. It cannot be determined when it would change but what could possibly bring a
change in such behaviour can be known. The major factors affecting consumer buying
behaviour are as follows:

1. Personal Factors: Personal factors include the age, gender, income, education, status
of the consumer. What product teenagers may prefer, might not be preferred by
adults. If a consumer has income level then he generally he will spend more.
However, this is not the case for every consumer with high income level. So if the
potential consumer have high income level, the product will be prices accordingly and
if they have low income level it would be priced comparatively low.
2. Psychological Factors: It includes the learning, attitude, , beliefs, perception and
motives of the consumer. Where learning brings change in buying behaviour due to
the gain of information and knowledge to the consumer, attitude is tendency or the
manner in which a consumer would act in a particular situation or with any particular
idea. It could be positive, negative or neutral. Perception refers to how a consumer
will see the product how he would take the idea behind it. Belief refers to a thought
which a person has about a particular thing. It is not necessarily based on faith or
religion, it could be based on knowledge, opinion or surroundings.
3. Situational Influences: Major situational influences include the physical surroundings,
social surroundings, time, the nature of the task, and monetary moods and conditions.
The physical surroundings at the place of purchase affects buying behaviour. For
instance, when a customer is shopping in a store, the features that affects buying
behaviour would include where the store is located, the layout of the store, the way a
product is displayed, and so on. The social surroundings of a situation involve the
other people with the customer that can influence buying decision at the point of
purchase. For example if a consumer want to buy a car then there would be people
such as friends and family who might give suggestions which would again change the
consumer behaviour. Customers may make different decisions based on when they
purchase the hour of the day, the day of the week, or the season of the year.
4. Social and Cultural Factors: Social factor includes reference groups which means a
small group of people such as colleagues, neighbours, family etc. who could change
the decision of the consumer. Now it is a well known fact that a person has certain

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Consumer Buying Behaviour

role in a group and people purchase certain products to conform such role. Cultural
factors on the other hand includes factors such as race, religion, caste, beliefs etc.
Cultural diversity effects food habits, clothing customs, perceptions about the
products etc. So, they become a very important factor. It is necessary for a marketing
firm to understand the prevalent cultural norms of the targeted consumers for the
success of any product.

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Consumer Buying Behaviour

Conclusion
Each and every person has his or her own behavior towards the purchasing process, however
all of them are influenced by certain factors. Those influences may be environmental, social,
personal, or psychological influences. But the cultural values are shared among the people in
the society and affect them gradually over time. Besides the society has different impacts on
one’s behavior depending on different groups to which it belongs. Each individual has their
own effects varying from age or sex or the process of perceiving, motivating and
memorizing. Those factors affect the consumer buying behavior so they should be
considered. The consumers themselves are the decision makers and so are the most important
factors in the consumer market. When a firm wants to enter in to a foreign market then the
local customer behavior is probably different from custom behavior that they are dealing with
the home country. Therefore, it is important for the marketing manager to take all these
factors into consideration, and helping them to develop marketing campaign in the market
and to improve the product to fully satisfy the customer which ultimately increase sales.

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References

 https://www.salesforce.com/research/customer-expectations/

 https://www.omniconvert.com/blog/consumer-behavior-in-marketing-patterns-types-
segmentation.html
 https://clootrack.com/knowledge_base/types-of-consumer-behavior/?amp
 http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.shanlaxjournals.in/pdf

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