UNIT 2

CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOUR

 Definition
• Buying Behavior is the decision processes and
acts of people involved in buying and using
products

• Consumer buying behaviour is the process

involved when individuals or groups select,
use, or dispose products, services, ideas or
experiences (exchange) to satisfy needs and
desires
 Stages of the Consumer Buying
Process
• Problem Recognition(awareness of need)
• Information search
• Evaluation of Alternatives
• Purchase decision
• Purchase
• Post-Purchase Evaluation
• CULTURAL FACTORS
• Culture
Culture is the share of each company and is the
major cause of the person who wants and
behavior.
 Consumer Buying Decision
Process/Possible Influences on the
Process
 Subculture
• Each culture has different subcultures, such as
religions, nationalities, geographical regions,
racial, etc.

• marketing groups may use these groups,

segmenting the market in several small portions.

• For example, marketers can design products

according to the needs of a specific geographical
group.
• Religion as a subculture
• Regional subculture
• Age as a subculture
• Gender as a Subculture
 Internal Factors
• Personality
• Attitude
• Perception
• Learning
• Motivation
Personality
 Examples
• Harley Davidson : “ We’re all created equal.
But after that, it’s up to you”
• Audi : “Never Follow”
 What Is Personality
• The inner psychological characteristics that both determine
and reflect how a person responds to his or her environment.

• The emphasis in this definition is on inner characteristics-

those specific qualities, attributes, traits, factors, and
mannerisms that distinguish one individual from other
individuals.
 Theories of Personality
• Freudian theory
– Unconscious needs or drives, are at the heart of human
motivation and personality
• Neo-Freudian personality theory
– Social relationships are fundamental to the formation and
development of personality
• Trait theory
– The orientation of trait theory is primarily quantitative or
empirical; it focuses on the measurement of personality in
terms of specific psychological characteristics, called traits. A
trait is defined as “ any distinguishing, relatively enduring way in
which one individual differs from another.” Trait theorists are
concerned with the construction of personality tests (or
inventories) that enable them to pinpoint individual differences
in terms of specific traits.
 Freudian Theory
Id
According to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of
personality, the id operates based on the pleasure
principle, which stresses on immediate fulfillment
of needs. The id is the personality component
made up of unconscious psychic energy which
satisfies basic urges, needs, and desires.
Superego
The superego provides guidelines for making
judgments. It is the aspect of personality that
holds all our moral standards and ideals that we
acquire from both parents and society
Ego
Ego is that state of awareness which thinks of you
as separate from the other. It always thinks of the
glories of the past and hopes of the future and
focuses on guiltiness. It always thinks of what was
and what could be.
 Brand Personality
• Brand personality is a set of human characteristics
that are attributed to a brand name.
• A brand personality is something to which the
consumer can relate; an effective brand increases
its brand equity by having a consistent set of traits
that a specific consumer segment enjoys.
Personality-like traits associated with brands
• Examples
– Nike and athlete
– BMW is performance driven
– Levi’s jeans are dependable and rugged
– Volvo -safety
Attitude
 The Tricomponent Attitude Model

Cognitive
• The knowledge and perceptions that are acquired by a
combination of direct experience with the attitude object and
related information from various sources Components
Affective
• A consumer’s emotions or feelings about a particular
product or brand Components
• It depicts emotional states that are positive, neutral or
negative

Conative/Behavioral
• The likelihood or tendency that an individual will
undertake a specific action or behave in a particular
way with regard to the attitude object.
• It depicts outcome of an attitude.
 Perception
• The process by which an individual selects,
organizes, and interprets stimuli into a
meaningful and coherent picture of the world
• Perception is the way in which an individual
gathers, processes, and interprets information
from the environment.
• How we see the world around us.
Sensory Perception
• It is governed by the
five senses: sight, smell,
sound, touch, and taste
• It focuses on product
specific sense attributes
and how these are
understood and
evaluated by
consumers.
An Overview of the
Perception Process
 Sensory Dynamics of perception
Sensation

Absolute threshold
Sensory Dynamics
Differential threshold

Subliminal perception
 Absolute Threshold
• The absolute threshold is the lowest level at
which an individual can experience a
sensation.
• The point at which a person can detect a
difference between “something” or “nothing”.

Ex. Driver of car spots

the billboard on the
road at different time
from the back seated
person..
 Promotional methods
• Experiential marketing (providing consumers with a
chance to try the products, demonstrations)
• Inserts and pop-ups (ads in magazines, sample of
shampoo in news papers/ magzines, pop-ups)
• Ambush advertising (placing ads where consumers can
not avoid them example: 3d ads on cricket field, placing ads
on the bottom of the tray, ads on buses, autos, bus stops etc.)
• Product placements (this method entails integrating
products into TV shows etc.)
Ambush advertising
Product Placements
 Differential Threshold
• Minimal difference that can be detected
between two similar stimuli
• Also known as the just noticeable difference
(the j.n.d.)
• Marketers want consumer to notice product
improvements(updated packaging, large size,
decresed price) but want consumers to avoid
negative changes like(reduction in product
size & quality or increase in the product price)
 Subliminal perception
• Too weak or too brief stimuli below the
conscious awareness of consumers.
• The effectiveness of so-called subliminal
perception was first tested at a drive in movie
theatre in new jersey in 1957. where the
words “eat popcorns and drink coke” were
flashed on the screen.
• The exposure time was very short.
 Consumer Learning
• A process by which
individuals acquire the
purchase and consumption
knowledge and experience
that they apply to future
related behavior.
 Behavioural Learning Theories

Classical Operant/Instrumental
Conditioning Conditioning

• Stimulus is an external object/person/situation which is

sensed and perceived.
• response is the behaviour of the person that occurs in reaction
to the object/person/situation.
 Types of Buying Behavior
• Complex Buying Behavior
• Dissonance Reducing Buying Behavior
• Habitual Buying Behavior
• Variety Seeking Buying Behavior
Types
 Complex Buying Behavior

• In complex buying behavior consumer shows

high level of involvement while purchase and
observe considerable differences among
brands.

• Complex consumer buying behavior is

noticeable when the product price is high,
risky, low quality after sale service and so on.
Dissonance Reducing Buying Behavior

• In dissonance reducing buying behavior

consumer involvement is very high due to high
price and infrequent purchase with less
significance differences among brands.

• Ex: Tiles, furniture, two comparative e-comm

websites
 Habitual Buying Behavior

• In Habitual buying behavior consumer

involvement is low as well as low is no
significance among brands names. The good
example is a lighter or match box or Salt
 Variety Seeking Buying Behavior

• In variety seeking buying behavior situation

consumer involvement is very low but there
are significance differences among brands.
• In this situation consumers perceive brand
switching.
Buying Motives
• Product buying motives refer to those influences and reasons,
which prompt (i.e. induce) a buyer to choose a particular
product in preference to other products.

• They include the physical attraction of the product (i.e. the

design, shape, dimension, size, color, package, performance,
price etc. of the product)
Emotional Product Buying Motives
• When a buyer decides to purchase a product
without thinking over the matter logically and
carefully
• Pride or Prestige
• Emulation or Imitation
• Affection
 Rational Product Buying Motives:
• Safety or Security
• Economy
• Suitability
• Utilities
• Convenience
 Patronage Buying Motives

• (The impulses , desires and considerations

that make buy it from a particular firm/ shop.)

• Examples :Particular Place, Special Discount,

Present Price, Decoration, Behavior etc.
Howard Sheth Model of
Consumer Behaviour
 Introduction
• The Howard -Sheth theory of buyer behaviour is a
sophisticated integration of the various social,
psychological and marketing influences on
consumer choice into a coherent sequence of
information processing.
• John Howard came out with the first truly
integrative model of buyer behaviour.
• the model relies on four major components -
stimulus inputs, hypothetical constructs,
response outputs and exogenous variables.
• This are the three levels of decision making:

Extensive problem solving - early stages of decision making

in which the buyer has little information about brands and
has not yet developed well defined and structured criteria
by which to choose among products.
• Limited problem solving - this is a more advance stage,
choice criteria are well defined but the buyer is still
undecided about which set of brands will best serve him.
Thus the consumer still experiences uncertainty about
which brand is best.
• Routinized response behaviour - buyers have well defined
choice criteria and also have strong predispositions toward
the brand. Little confusion exists in the consumer's mind
and he is ready to purchase a particular brand with little
evaluation of alternatives.
 The Input Variables
• The input variables consist of informational cues about the
attributes of a product or brand( i.e. quality, price, distinctiveness,
service and availability). This informational cues may
be significative if they influence the consumer directly through the
brand's attributes
• or symbolic if they derive from the same factors as they are
portrayed in the mass media and by salespeople, influencing the
consumer in a indirect way.
• these two sources are commercial .
• A third set of informational cues may come from the buyer's social
environment, including the family, reference groups and social class
- which are influences that are internalized by the consumer before
they can affect the decision process.
 Hypothetical Constructs
• Hypothetical constructs have been classified in
two groups - perceptual constructs and learning
constructs.
• The first deals with the way the individual
perceives and responds to the information from
the input variables, accounting for stimulus
ambiguity and perceptual bias.
• The second deals with the stages from the buyer
motives to his satisfaction in a buying situation.
• The purchase intention is an outcome of the interplay
of buyer motives, choice criteria, brand
comprehension, resultant brand attitude and the
confidence associated with the purchase decision.
• The motives are general or specific goals impelling to
action, impinging upon the buyer intention are also the
attitudes about the existing brand alternatives in the
buyer's evoked set, which result in an arrangement of
an order of preference regarding brands. Brand
comprehension and the degree of confidence that the
buyer has about it, choice criteria and buying
intentions, converge upon the intention to buy.
 Output Variables
• The five output variables in the right hand portion of the
model are buyer's observable responses to stimulus inputs.
• They are arranged in order from Attention to Actual
Purchase.
• The purchase is the actual, overt act of buying and is the
sequential result of the attention (buyers total response to
information intake), the brand comprehension, brand
attitude ( referring to the evaluation of satisfying potential
of the brand)
• and the buyer intention ( a verbal statement made in the
light of the above externalizing factors that the preferred
brand will be bought the next time the buying is
necessitated.
Nicosia Model of Consumer
Behaviour
 Introduction
• Francesco M. Nicosia a leading scholar in the field of
consumer behaviour propounded a comprehensive model in
1966 to analyze consumer's behavioural process.

 The model concentrates on the communication process that

occurs between a brand and a consumer.

 It uses a flow of events through different stages that are

identified as fields.

 The firms marketing communications, consumer's attributes,

consumer's decision process and feed back are the main
components that are represented in this dynamic model.
 Nicosia Model
• This Model concerns with the Inter-relationship
between:
 The firms marketing communications
 The attributes of the consumer,
 The consumers decision process including
 Search and evaluation process
 Actual decision process
 The feedback of the consumers response to the
firm
Nicosia Model
 Field 1: The consumer attitude based on the
firms’ messages.

The first field is divided into two subfields.

 The first subfield deals with the firm’s marketing environment and
communication efforts that affect consumer attitudes, the competitive
environment, and characteristics of target market.

 Subfield two specifies the consumer characteristics e.g., experience,

personality, and how he perceives the promotional idea toward the
product in this stage the consumer forms his attitude toward the firm’s
product based on his interpretation of the message.
 Field 2: search and evaluation

 The consumer will start to search for other firm’s brand

and evaluate the firm’s brand in comparison with alternate
brands.
 In this case the firm motivates the consumer to purchase
its brands.
 Field 3: The act of the purchase

 The result of motivation will arise by convincing the

consumer to purchase the firm products from a specific
retailer.
 Field 4: Feed back

 This model analyses the feedback of both the firm and the
consumer after purchasing the product.
 The firm will benefit from its sales data as a feedback, and
the consumer will use his experience with the product
affects the individuals attitude and predisposition’s
concerning future messages from the firm.