Analyzing Consumer Buying

Behavior
Module 4

analyzing buying behavior

 Buying behavior

• Marketers have to go beyond the various

influences on buyers and develop an
understanding of how consumers actually
make their buying decisions
• Marketers identify who makes the buying
decision, types of buying decisions and
the steps into buying process

analyzing buying behavior

 Buying Roles
• Initiator – a person who first suggests the idea of buying
the particular product or service
• Influencer – a person whose view or advice influences
the decision
• Decider – A person who decides on any component of a
buying decision whether to buy, how to buy or where to
buy
• Buyer – The person who makes the actual purchase
• User – A person who consumes or uses the product or
service

analyzing buying behavior

Types of Buying Behavior

analyzing buying behavior

 Complex Buying Behavior
• Highly involved in purchase and aware of significant
differences among brands
• Consumers are highly involved when the product is
expensive, bought infrequently, risky and highly self-
expressive e.g. a PC
• The buyer will pass through a learning process
characterized by first developing beliefs about the
product, then attitudes, and then making a thoughtful
purchase choice
• The marketer needs to develop strategies that assist the
buyer in learning about the attributes of the product
class, their relative importance, and the high standing of
the company’s brand on the more important attributes

analyzing buying behavior

 Dissonance-Reducing Buying
Behavior
• Consumer is highly involved in the purchase but sees
little difference in the brands
• Purchase is expensive, infrequent and risky
• The buyer will shop around to learn what is available but
will buy fairly quickly because brand differences are not
pronounced
• The buyer may respond primarily to a good price or to
purchase convenience
• Marketing communication should aim to supply beliefs
and evaluations that help the consumer feel good about
his or her brand choice

analyzing buying behavior

 Habitual Buying Behavior
• Low consumer involvement and the absence of
significant brand differences
• You keep reaching for the same brand out of habit, not
out of strong brand loyalty
• Low cost, frequently purchased products
• Consumer behavior does not pass through the normal
belief/attitude/behavior sequence
• Consumers do not search extensively for the brands,
evaluate their characteristics, and make a weighty
decision on which brand to buy
• They are passive recipients of information as they watch
television or see print ads
• Ad repetition creates brand familiarity rather than brand
conviction
analyzing buying behavior
 Habitual buying behavior

• Marketers should use price and sales

promotion to stimulate product trail, since
buyers are not highly committed to a
brand
• Ad copy should stress only a few points,
visual imagery and symbols are important,
short duration messages and television is
an effective medium
analyzing buying behavior
Variety-seeking buying behavior
• Low consumer involvement but significant brand
differences
• Consumer may reach for another brand out of boredom
or a wish for a different brand
• Brand switching occurs for the sake of variety rather
than dissatisfaction
• The market leader will try to encourage buying behavior
by dominating the shelf space, avoiding out-of-stock
conditions and sponsoring frequent reminder advertising
• Challenger firms will encourage variety seeking by
offering lower prices, deals and coupons etc

analyzing buying behavior

 Researching the Buying Decision
Process
• Ask consumer when they first became acquainted with
the product category and brands, what their brand
beliefs are, how involved they are with the product, how
they make their brand choices and how satisfied they
are after purchase
• Consumers can be segmented on the basis of styles –
for instance, deliberate versus impulsive buyers and
different marketing strategies can be directed towards
each segment
• Introspective, retrospective, prospective prescriptive
method

analyzing buying behavior

 Stages in the Buying Decision
Process
• Problem recognition, information search,
evaluation of alternatives, purchase
decision and post purchase behavior
• This implies that consumers pass through
all five stages in buying a product but this
is not necessarily true

analyzing buying behavior

 Need Recognition

• The buyer senses a difference between his

or her actual state and a desired state
• Can be triggered by internal or external
stimuli
• Internal – hunger, thirst and sex rise to a
threshold level and becomes a drive
• External – smell etc.

analyzing buying behavior

 Information search
• Heightened search and active information search
• Consumer information sources:
1. Personal sources
2. Commercial sources
3. Public sources
4. Experiential sources
• Relative amount and influence of these information
sources vary with the product category and the
buyer’s characteristics
• Awareness set, consideration set and choice set

analyzing buying behavior

 Evaluation of Alternatives
• Consumer evaluation process are cognitive oriented – that is, they
see the consumer as forming product judgments largely on a
conscious and rational basis
• We see consumer is trying to satisfy a need, looking for certain
benefits from the product solution
• The consumer sees each product as a bundle of attributes with
varying capabilities of delivering the sought benefits and satisfying
this need
• They will pay the most attention to the ones that will deliver the
sought benefits
• Marketers should be more concerned with the importance of
attributes rather than their salience. Importance weight
• The consumer is likely to develop a set of brand beliefs about where
each brand stands on each attribute. The brand beliefs make up the
brand image
• Utility function – how consumers product satisfaction varies with
different levels of each attribute

analyzing buying behavior

 Purchase Decision
1. Attitudes of others – depends on the intensity
of the other person’s negative attitude towards
the consumers preferred alternatives and the
consumers motivation to comply with the other
person’s wishes
2. Unanticipated situational factors
• A consumers decision to modify, postpone, or
avoid a purchase decisions is heavily
influenced by perceived risk

analyzing buying behavior

 Post purchase behavior

• Post purchase satisfaction

• Post Purchase action

analyzing buying behavior