Ch: 5
Consumer Markets
&
Consumer Buyer Behavior


Consumer buyer behavior: The buying behavior of final consumers- individuals & house holds who buy goods & services for personal consumption.

Consumer Markets: All the individuals & households who buy or acquire goods & services for personal consumption.

1. Model of Consumer Behavior

2. Characteristics Affecting Consumer Behavior

Culture: The set of basic values, wants & behaviors learned by a member of a society from family & other important institutions.
Subculture: A group of people with shared value system based on common life experiences & situations.
Social class: Relatively permanent & ordered divisions in a society whose members share values interests & behaviors.

Group: Two or more people who interact to accomplish individual or mutual goals.
Reference groups: Direct or indirect points of compression or reference in forming a person’s attitudes or behavior.
Opinion leader: A person within a reference group who, because of special skills, ability, knowledge, personality or other characteristics exerts social influence on others.

Roles & Status: A role consists of activities people are to perform according to the persons around them. Each role carries a status reflecting the general esteem given to it by society.
Lifestyle: A person’s pattern of living as expressed in his or her activities, interests & opinions.

Personality: The unique psychological characteristics that lead to reflectively consistent & lasting responses to one’s environment.

Motivation: A need that is sufficiently pressing to direct the person to seek satisfaction of the need.
Perception: The process by which people select, organize & interpret information to form a meaningful picture of the world.
Learning: Changes in an individual’s behavior arising from experience.
Belief: A descriptive thought that a person has about something.
Attitude: A person’s relatively consistent evaluations, feelings & tendencies towards an object or idea.

3. Types of Buying Decision Behavior

4. The Buyer Decision Process

Need recognition: The first stage of the buyer decision process, in which the consumer recognizes a problem or a need.
Information search: The stage of the buyer decision process in which the consumer is aroused to search for more information; the consumer may simple have heightened attention or may go into active information search.
Alternative evaluation: The stage of the buyer decision process in which the consumer uses information to evaluate alternative brands in the choice set.
Purchase decision: The buyer’s decision which product to purchase.
Post purchase behavior: The stage of the buyer decision process in which the consumer takes further action after purchase, based on their satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

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