Ch3: consumer market and

consumer buying behaviors

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 This chapter explore the dynamics of consumer market and
consumer buying behaviors.
 Consumer market :all the individual who buy or acquire goods and
services for personal consumption.

 Consumer behavior refer to the study of consumers and the processes

they use to choose, consume, and dispose of products and services,
including consumers’ mental, emotional, and behavioral responses.

Note:
 Consumer behavior incorporates ideas from several sciences including
psychology, social psychology, anthropology, economics, politics and other
fields.
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 Consumer behavior is an Interdisciplinary Field

Psychology Anthropology
Consumer
Behavior
studies

Social
Psychology Economics

Other Fields
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Why is consumer behavior important?
- Consumer behavior is important for businesses because it
help them to :
- understand their target audience.
- Identify consumer needs and wants.
- Develop effective marketing strategies that can influence
consumers’ decision-making processes.
- Succeed in its current product and new product launches.
- Note:
If a company fails to understand the reaction of a consumer towards a
product, there are high chances of product failure.

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 A consumer behavior analysis
 A consumer behavior analysis helps you identify how your
customers decide on a product or a service.

 A consumer behavior analysis should reveal:

1- What consumers think and how they feel about various
alternatives (brands, products, etc.)?
2- What influences consumers to choose between various options?
3- How consumers’ environment (friends, family, media, etc.)
influences their behavior?

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How do you identify consumer behavior?

-To study consumer behavior, you need a mix of qualitative

and quantitative data from customer surveys, customer
interviews, and the information gathered from observation of
their behavior in-store and online.

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• Factors that contributed to the growing interest in consumer
behavior
 The accelerated rate of new product development.

 The consumer movement.

 Public policy considerations.

 Environmental concerns.

 The opening of national markets throughout the world.

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 What affects consumer behavior?
 Many things can affect consumer behavior, but the most frequent
factors influencing consumer behavior are:
1. Marketing campaigns (Facebook ads)
 Marketing campaigns influence purchasing decisions a lot. If done
right and regularly, with the right marketing message, they can even
persuade consumers to change brands or opt for more expensive
alternatives. (e.g :Olympiad London, 2012; Activia 2017)
2. Economic conditions
 For expensive products, like houses or cars, economic conditions
play a big part.
 A positive economic environment is known to make consumers more
confident and willing to indulge in purchases irrespective of their
financial liabilities.

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3. Personal preferences
 Consumer behavior can also be influenced by personal factors: likes,
dislikes, priorities, morals, and values.
- In industries like fashion or food, personal opinions are especially
powerful.

4. Group influence
 Peer pressure also influences consumer behavior. What our family
members, classmates, immediate relatives, and neighbors, think
or do can play a significant role in our decisions.

5. Purchasing power
 our purchasing power plays a significant role in influencing our
behavior.
 you will consider your budget before making a purchase decision.
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• New trends to study Consumer Behaviors
Some of the trends expected to feature most prominently.
1- increasing transparency
There is an increasing customer demand in transparency. Big
corporations have exploited the trust of the customer for a long time.
We've seen too many scandals within may industries from food to
automotive. That's the reason why the customers of today require
transparency on the supply chain, ingredients, processes and so on.
2- New Techniques in Online Purchasing
Buying online and using home delivery is accelerating. All businesses
will need to have an online strategy or they’re going to get diminished
by their competitors that embrace and execute an online sale and
marketing strategy.
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3-Increasing Demand for Anonymity
Customers will demand more anonymity. Companies will need to
accommodate customers who will refuse to provide any information
beyond what is needed for a particular transaction.

4- Increased Focus on Green Products

As consumers demand more green products, suppliers will produce more,
pushing the demand further. Demand for electric vehicles, solar panels and
vegan meat will be higher than ever, and more and more companies will
pivot toward this.

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Types of consumer behaviors

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 – Involvement:
– The level of importance or interest generated by a product or a
decision.
• High-involvement Decisions:
– Characterized by high levels of importance thorough information
processing.
• Low-involvement Decisions:
– Occur when relatively little personal interest, relevance, or
importance is associated with a purchase.

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 Types of consumer behaviors:
 There are four main types of consumer behavior:
 1. Complex buying behavior (high involvement/ significant
difference among brands)
 This type of behavior is encountered when consumers are buying an
expensive, infrequently bought product.
 They are highly involved in the purchase process and consumers’
research before committing to a high-value investment.
 Imagine buying a house or a car; these are an example of a complex
buying behavior.

 2. Dissonance-reducing buying behavior (high involvement/ few

difference among brands)
 The consumer is highly involved in the purchase process but has
difficulties determining the differences between brands. ‘Dissonance’
can occur when the consumer worries that they will regret their choice.
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 3. Habitual buying behavior (low involvement/ few difference
among brands)
 Habitual purchases are characterized by the consumer having very little
involvement in the product or brand category. Example: grocery shopping,
not strong brand loyalty.
 4. Variety-seeking behavior (low involvement/ significant
difference among brands)
 In this situation, a consumer purchases a different product not
because they weren’t satisfied with the previous one, but because they
seek variety.
 Offering a variety of different product lines, and adding new
items regularly, can help keep these customers from getting bored
with your brand to keep shopping with you, rather than testing out
your competitors.
 Keep them in the loop with regular email, in-app, or SMS updates that
let them know about new products they can try out.
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Model of consumer behavior
 Learning about consumer buying behavior and the buying decision process is
not so easy- the answers are often locked deep within the consumer's head.

 The central question is : How do consumers respond to various

marketing stimuli the company might use?

 Stimuli is something that causes growth, activity, or reaction.

 Companies and academics have heavily researched the relationship between
marketing stimuli and consumer response.

 Their starting point is stimulus-response model of buyer behavior shown in the

following figure:
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Marketing Other Buyer’s
Stimuli Stimuli Buyer’s Black Box
Responses

Product choice
Product Economic
Buyer Brand choice
Price Technological Buyer
Decision Dealer Choice
Place Political Characteristics
Process Purchase timing
Promotion Cultural
Purchase amount

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 This figure shows that marketing and the other stimuli enter the
consumer’s “ black box” and produce certain responses.

 Marketing stimuli consist of the fours Ps :

1- Product 2- Price
3-Promotion 4- Place
 Other stimuli include major forces and events in the buyer’s
environment:
- Economic - Technological
- Political - Cultural
 All this stimuli enter the buyers black Box, where they are turned
onto a set of observable buyer responses as shown on the right.
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 Consumer purchases are strongly influenced by cultural, social,
personal and psychological characteristics.
 These factors are shown in the following figure :
Cultural Social
Personal
Psychological

Reference Age and Life-

Culture Group cycle Stage Motivation
Occupation
Perception
Family Buyer
Subculture Economic
Circumstances Learning

Roles and Lifestyle Beliefs and

Social Class status attitudes
Personality and
Self-concept
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1- cultural factors:
Cultural factors exert the broadest and deepest influences on consumer behavior.
 The marketer needs to understand the role played by the buyer’s culture, subculture,
and social class.
1- culture:
The set of basic values, perceptions, wants, and behaviors learned by a member of
society from family and other important institutions.
2- subculture:
A group of people with shared value systems based on common life experiences
and situations. E.g. Asian, African American, working women, mature consumers,
Hispanic.
3- social class:
• Relatively permanent divisions in a society whose members share similar values,
interest, and behavior.
• Social class can be measured by a combination of occupation, income, education,
wealth, and other variables.
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2- Social Factors:
Such as the consumer’s small groups, family, and social roles and status.
1- groups:
A person’s behavior is influenced by many small groups. such as:-
a- Membership Group
That have a direct influence on a person’s behavior and to which a person
belongs.

(primary group). A person has regular contact with certain individuals . e.g.
family and friends.
(secondary group). If the group members have less frequent contact
amongst themselves. e.g. shopping groups, sports club .

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b- References Group

Groups that have a direct ( face-to-face) or indirect impact on the person’s

attitude or behavior.
normative reference groups include your parents, teachers, peers,
associates and friends. A comparative reference group is a group of
individuals whom you compare yourself against and may strive to be like.
Examples include celebrities and heroes.
c- Aspirational Group (Anticipatory aspiration/ Symbolic aspiration)
A Group to which an individual whishes to belong.
Anticipatory aspiration: when an individual aspires for a group higher in the
organizational hierarchy, this is basically for rewards like power, status,
prestige and money.
Symbolic aspiration: Marketers appeal to symbolic aspirations by using
celebrities to advertise
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certain products
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2- family
• Family members can have a strong influence on the buyer’s behaviors.
3- role and status
The person’s position in each group can be defined in terms of both role and
status.
a- Role :
The activities a person is expected to perform according to the people around him
or her.
b-Status :
The general esteem given to a role by society.

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Personal Factors
A buyer’s decision are also influenced by personal characteristics such as the buyer’s
age and life-cycle stage, occupation, economic situation, lifestyle, and personality.
1- Age and Life-cycle Stage
People change the goods and service they buy over their lifetime.
Buying is also shaped by the stage of the family life cycle.
Family life cycle : the stages through which families might pass as they mature over
time.
– The sequence of steps a family goes through:
• From young, to
• Single adults, to
• Married couples whose children have left home, to
• The retired survivor

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2- Occupation
A person’s occupation affects the goods and services bought.
3- Economic Situation
A person’s economic situation will greatly affect product choice. Include:

4- Lifestyle
A person’s pattern of living as expressed in his or her activities, interest, and
opinions.
5- personality:
A person’s unique psychological characteristics that lead to relatively consistent
and lasting responses to his or her own environment

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The Buyer-Decision Process
The buyer – decision process consists of five stages:
1- Problem Recognition 2- Information Search
3- Evaluation of Alternative 4- Purchase Decision
5- Post purchase Behavior
1- problem recognition (awareness of needs)
The first stage of the buyer- decision process in which the consumer recognize a problem or
need. the need can be triggered by internal stimuli or external stimuli.

2- information search
The stage of the buyer- decision process in which the consumer search for more
information
The consumer can obtain information from any of several sources. These include:
Personal Sources : Family, Friends, neighbors. (word of mouth)
Commercial Sources: advertising, salespeople, dealers.
public sources: mass media, consumer organizations.
experiential sources: handling, examining, using the product.
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3- evaluation of alternatives:
The stage of the buyer-decision process in which the consumer uses
information to evaluate alternative brands in the choice set.
 You need to establish criteria for evaluation, features the buyer wants or does
not want. Rank/weight alternatives.
 If you not satisfied with your choice then return to the search phase.

 Information from different sources may be treated differently.

4- purchase decision:
The stage of the buyer- decision process in which the consumer actually buys
the product.
 Choose buying alternative, includes product, package, store, method of
purchase etc.
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5- post purchase behaviors:
Post purchase Behavior is The stage of the buyer- decision process in which the consumer
take further action after purchase based on their satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
• If the product matches expectations, the consumer is satisfied.
If the product falls short expectations, the consumer is dissatisfied.

The larger the gap between expectation and performance, the greater the consumer’s
dissatisfaction.
Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort or a form of post purchase doubt about the
appropriateness of a decision.
- 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.
Note:
This model seems to imply that consumer pass through all five stages with every purchase.
But in more routine2023/3/13
purchase, consumers skip or reverse some of these
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stages.
 Cognitive Dissonance

• Cognitive Dissonance occurs when:

– Decisions are major
– The purchase is important
– Perceived risk is high
– The purchase is visible
– The decision involves a long-term
commitment
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