Consumer Behavior

How will a consumer decide whether to purchase a good? When a consumer purchases a good, what does this reveal?

Professor John Maule from the University of Leeds describes new research into the way that consumers choose a product.

This model is important for anyone making marketing decisions. It ensures the marketers consider the whole buying process rather than just the purchase decision.

Consumers behavior the study of individuals and groups and organization , processes that are used to identify and secure , use of products and services also experiences or ideas to meet the needs and the effects these

Everyday, every minute, and every second consumers are making decisions on whether or not they should purchase a given product. The product could be as small as a candy bar to as big as a car. The processes that flow inside the mind of a consumer when making a decision is both psychologically and economically based. So, understanding the process is central to making rationally based decisions. However, this decision is not only important to the consumer purchasing the product, it’s also of important significance to the marketers and policy makers. Reasons why making decisions can be so difficult is that the consumer is dealt with many alternatives, and with the rapid pace in technology this is making it more difficult.

A buyer will have different factors that might influence them to buy. Like personal, psychological, social and cultural. For example, when I buy branded clothes because my motive is to be at the same level as others. Or when I buy a new technology items because of its functionality.

The reasons why an individual decides to purchase an item are numerous and complicated. It may be because of personal need, desire, or even peer pressure, but whatever the reason, it cannot necessarily be predicted on a large scale. One person’s reasoning will be totally different to another person’s, and an individual may even come to a different decision on a different day depending upon many criteria.

In an innovative economic society, were millions of products and services are created each year; marketing research is an essential element that provides a comprehensible representation of a need, and potential product concept solutions. Companies are always looking for new ways to generate a constant flow of revenue that will provide a competitive edge in a growing economic environment. Therefore, it is the marketing manager responsibility to assign marketing studies that targets a specific problem and produce opportunities for growth. Good marketers need insights to help them interpret past performance as well as plan future activities (Kotler & Keller, p. 97). Marketing research is crucial to the success of a company. In order to

Purchaser choice making changes with the kind of purchasing choice. There are extraordinary contrasts between purchasing toothpaste, a tennis racket, a PC, and another auto. Perplexing and extravagant buys are prone to include more purchaser consideration and more members.

In these modern days, consumers are bombarded with brands and advertising from different companies and they have a lot more options when it comes to purchasing a product. They usually rely on both intrinsic and extrinsic cues to solve their problem regarding to the quality of products. Consumers have to make their purchasing decision under various uncertainties and circumstances regarding to the product itself and its attributes as Cox (1962, p. 413) stated that ‘consumer 's task in evaluating a product is to use cues from the array as the basis for making judgments about the product’.

Ans The study of consumer behavior enables marketers to understand and predict consumer behavior in the marketplace; it is concerned not only with what consumers buy but also with why, when, where, and how they buy it. Consumer research is the methodology used to study consumer behavior; it takes place at every phase of the consumption process: before the purchase, during the purchase, and after the purchase.

ConsumerPsychologist.com, part of the University of Southern California, define consumer behaviour as "the study of individuals, groups or organizations and the processes they use to select, secure, use and dispose of products, services, experiences or ideas to satisfy needs." Essentially, consumer behavior deals with how frequently a person or organization may purchase an item from a company. It closely relates to elements of customer service--such as problem resolution and overall satisfaction--and to marketing strategies such as pricing, promotion and product placement.

After purchasing the product and using/testing it, the consumers would either be satisfied or dissatisfied. A company would need the customer to be delighted with the purchase that he has made and also that he should feel proud of it. It is very important for the customers to be delighted and happy with the

Most marketers are familiar with the four stages of the customers' buying process, around which marketing activities can be planned. The four stages are need-and-want recognition, information gathering, evaluation and purchase. Within each stage, marketers have the opportunity to improve the customer experience and influence the customer through all stages toward a purchase. However, the mass adoption of the Web channel among customers has shifted the stages of the customer buying process from a mostly offline activity to an increasingly online activity. Many customers now go through the entire buying process online, or use the online channel though multiple steps of the process. For

Thus, depending on the type of decision being made, the degree and strength of active reasoning will vary. There are three factors which influence the degree of active reasoning that is undertaken by the consumer in his process of decision-making. These are: i) involvement, ii) alternative differentiation, and iii) time pressure i) Involvement: When a product is perceived to be of great personal importance to the customer, such as personal clothing, or its purchase involves a great deal of money or risk such as jewellery, car, house, company shares, the level of involvement in making the decision is likely to be very high. The consumer is likely to spend a great deal of time before arriving at the final decision. In contrast, when buying items which do not reflect much on the consumer's personality or their purchase involves small amounts of money .or the risk associated with them is not high, the degree of involvement of the consumer is likely to be low. Products such as shoes, polish, toilet soap, toothpaste, biscuits etc. would fall in this category. ii) Differentiation: When the consumer perceives that the various alternatives which are available are very different from one another in terms of their features and benefits offered, he is likely to spend more time in gathering information about and evaluating these