Overview
In marketing, consumer behavior is the study of the acquisition, consumption, use, and disposal of products, services, experiences, or ideas by consumers. When considered in greater depth, consumer behavior can be defined as the study of how and when individuals, groups, and organizations select, purchase, use and dispose of products, services, experiences, or ideas to satisfy their needs. It also involves the study of why consumption decisions are made. In addition, consumer behavior looks at the impacts that the processes of selection, purchasing, use, and disposal have on consumers and society.
Consumer behavior studies the characteristics of individual consumers by looking at variables such as demographics, psychographics, and behavior in an attempt to understand the consumer and his or her world. Demographics include factors such as race, age, income, mobility (travel time to work or number of vehicles available), educational attainment, home ownership, employment status, and location. Psychographics are attributes related to personality, values, attitudes, interests, or lifestyles. Behavioral variables include usage rate and loyalty. Consumer behavior also tries to assess influences on the consumer from groups such as family, friends, reference groups, and society in general (Perner, 2003).
Consumer behavior is a subcategory of marketing that blends elements from economics, psychology, sociology, social psychology, anthropology, and other sciences, such as physiological psychology, biochemistry, and genetics. The field of economics actually provided the foundation for marketing, but it wrongly assumed “that consumers are rational decision makers who actively seek information, objectively evaluate alternatives available to them, and make rational selections of products or services to maximize their benefits.” By neglecting the emotional side of the customer, among other psychological factors, economists “failed to provide marketing with all of the concepts needed to understand the complexities” of what motivates consumers(Demirdjian & Senguder, 2004, p. 349).
Realizing these limitations, marketing scholars began to seek an “understanding of consumer behavior from other sciences. Psychology—the study of individual behavior—was one of the earliest and most extensively used fields from which concepts have been borrowed. Motivation, perception, learning, beliefs, attitudes and so on, have all been used to explain why the consumer behaves the way he or she does” (Demirdjian & Senguder, 2004, p. 349). “Social psychology is yet another source from which many concepts have been borrowed, as this field is concerned with the behavior of individuals in the presence of other individuals or groups.” Research into other sciences such as physiological psychology, which is the “study of the interaction of the body with the mind,” and which studies the “extent to which behavior is caused by physical and chemical phenomena in the body,” is relatively recent (Demirdjian & Senguder, 2004, p. 349).
It has been said that the basic nature of consumer behavior is diversity: the field is characterized by diversity in theories and diversity in research methods (Demirdjian & Senguder, 2004). Although early related research can be traced back much farther, the attempt to theorize consumer behavior began in 1962, first looking at the type of behavioral processes consumers typically used in adopting new products; then addressing consumer problem-solving, buyer behavior, and buyer decision processes. Subsequent research has looked into information processing of consumer choice and the experiential consumer.
Since the early 1980s, research has been conducted in areas as wide and varied as deviant behavior, consumer perception, planned behavior, intention-behavior discrepancy, environmentally responsible behavior, consumer judgment, attitudes, dependence, international and cross-cultural consumer behavior, impulsive buying, personality-behavior relationships, the role of imagery, web-browsing habits, and social and political marketing issues.
Applications
Behavior occurs either for an individual on his or her own; for an individual in the context of a group (where others in the group influence how a person behaves); or for an organization (where people on the job make decisions as to which products the firm should use). The study of consumer behavior attempts to understand the buyer decision-making process for individuals, groups, and organizations.
Consumer decision making comes about as an attempt to solve consumer problems, both major and minor. A consumer buying decision process can have up to six stages. Actual purchasing is only one stage of the process, and not all decision processes may lead to a purchase. The number of stages involved in a particular decision depends on the degree of complexity of that decision. The six stages are problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, purchase, and post-purchase evaluation.
The first stage, problem recognition, is when a consumer becomes aware of a need. The need is manifest because there is a difference between the consumer’s desired state and his or her actual condition. The second stage is the information search. There are two types of information searches: internal and external. With an internal information search, the consumer searches the information stored in his or her memory. If more information is needed after the internal search, the consumer may consult external information sources such as friends and relatives for word-of-mouth, marketing information, comparison shopping, and public sources.
A successful information search leaves a needy consumer with possible alternatives collectively called the evoked set. Armed with the evoked set, the consumer embarks on the third stage of the buying decision process: evaluation of alternatives. Here, the consumer may need to establish the criteria for evaluation, such as features of the product or service that the buyer wants or does not want. The consumer may rank or weigh the alternatives to arrive at a choice or resume searching if a satisfactory choice is not arrived at. Information from different sources may be treated differently.
The fourth stage in the consumer buying decision process is the purchase decision. Here, the consumer selects from the available alternatives, making decisions on details such as the specific product or service, its packaging, retail outlet, and method of purchase. The fifth stage is the purchase, which at times occurs simultaneously with the purchase decision. Sometimes product availability issues may cause a time lapse between the purchase decision and the actual purchase.
The sixth and last stage in the consumer buying decision process is post-purchase evaluation (also known as post-acquisition evaluation), which may occur to the buyer consciously or subconsciously. At the end of his or her evaluation, the buyer may experience satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction may result from many factors, such as unmet brand expectations, and at times may lead to the consumer lodging a complaint. A satisfied consumer may end up becoming loyal to a particular brand or retail outlet.
A plethora of variables affect consumer behavior and not all have been even discovered or explored yet. While it is not possible to discuss many of these variables here, it is possible, however, to look at the following:
In consumer behavior, the Behavioral Influence Perspective assumes that strong environmental forces propel consumers to action without them necessarily first developing strong feelings or beliefs about a product, a service, an experience, or an idea. The consumer is impacted by many external influences: as a member of society, for instance, one acquires, through one’s culture, knowledge, beliefs, morals, values, customs, and other capabilities and habits.
Apart from cultural and sub-cultural (such as African American, Hispanic and Asian) influences, the consumer is also subject to situational influences, which are temporary environmental factors and include physical surroundings, social surroundings, and time. Consumers are also subject to cross-cultural influences and group influences.
The literature on group influence is as extensive as its role in consumer decision making. One useful framework of analysis of group influence on the individual is the reference group. This is a group of people used by an individual as a standard of reference against which to compare him- or herself, such as role models. Reference groups come in several different forms. The aspirational reference group refers to those others against whom one would like to compare oneself (Perner, 2003).
According to Perner (2003), associative reference groups “include people who more realistically represent an individual’s current equals or near-equals.” Specifically, these include “coworkers, neighbors, or members of churches, clubs, and organizations. The final group, the dissociative reference group, includes people that the individual would not like to be like” (Perner, 2003). Marketers use the various groups to bring pertinent messages home to their actual and potential consumers.
Reference groups have various degrees of influence. Primary reference groups are those with the greatest amount of influence on an individual; secondary reference groups tend to have less influence—they may not enjoy very close relationships with the individual.
As Perner notes, in families, individual members “often serve different roles in decisions that ultimately draw on shared family resources. Some individuals are information gatherers or information holders: they seek out information about products of relevance. These individuals often have a great deal of power because they may selectively pass on information that favors their chosen alternatives” (2003). There are also the influencers: “they do not ultimately have the power to decide between alternatives, but they may make their wishes known by asking for specific products or causing embarrassing situations if their demands are not met” (Perner, 2003).
The next role is that of the decision maker(s), who have the power to determine issues such as whether to buy; which product to buy; which brand to buy; where to buy it; and when to buy it. The last role in family decision making is that of the purchaser. The fact that the purchaser and the decision maker may be different people often poses problems for marketers, since the purchaser can be targeted by point-of-purchase marketing efforts that cannot be aimed at the decision maker (Perner, 2003).
Apart from external factors and influences as described above, the consumer is also prone to internal influences, such as attitudes, perception, and intention. Consumer attitudes are the sum of a consumer’s positive, negative, or neutral beliefs about, feelings about, and behavioral intentions toward an object, which, in the context of marketing, is usually a brand or retail outlet. The components of attitude are considered “together since they are highly interdependent and together represent forces that influence how the consumer will react to the object” (Perner, 2003).
Perception is one of the personal factors that determine consumer behavior. The term “personal factors” refers to the closest environment of a person, including everything that is inside the person, his or her head and soul, characterizing him or her as a personality. Using his or her sensory receptors and being influenced by external factors as discussed above, the person receives information, accepts and adapts it, forms a personal attitude, an opinion, and a motive, which can be defined as factors that will influence his or her further activity and behavior (Banyte, J., Paunksniene, Ž., & Rutelione, A., 2007).
The Theory of Planned Behavior suggests that behavioral intention—the motivation that determines how hard people are willing to try to perform a behavior—is the most influential predictor of behavior: it assumes that a person does what he or she intends to do (Pavlou & Fygenson, 2006). However, this is not always the case. Sometimes there is a discrepancy between intention and behavior. This is referred to as the intention-behavior discrepancy.
Other factors that influence behavior include past experience or past behavior, habit, and even the information-gathering process, which has been found to have a significant impact on purchasing (Pavlou and Fygenson, 2006).
When consumer behavior differs from the norm or the standard, it is termed “deviant.” Deviant behavior veers away from established customs, manners, rules and regulations, laws, and mores—which themselves are sometimes poorly defined or unclear. Depending on the extent to which an individual’s behavior deviates from such norms, it may be considered by society to be either undesirable, unacceptable, or dysfunctional (which is another word for “deviant”).
Another way in which deviancy can be defined is in terms of the frequency or the degree to which a consumer deviates from society’s norms and prescribed behaviors (Moschis and Cox, 1989). Deviant behavior does not only pertain to individuals: it can also emanate from firms and organizations, for instance, through deceptive advertising, advertising harmful products to children, and telemarketing fraud.
Similarly, some consumers display negligent consumer behavior through the misuse of products and the consumption of hazardous products.
To conclude, those organizations that understand what would appeal to the current and potential consumers of their products and services can tailor their advertising and other marketing efforts accordingly. Understanding consumer behavior helps firms and organizations improve their marketing strategies by understanding issues such as:
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How consumers think, feel, reason, and select between different alternatives, such as brands and products
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How consumers are influenced by their environment, for instance, by culture, family, signs, and the media
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The behavior of consumers while shopping or making other marketing decisions
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How limitations in consumer knowledge or information-processing abilities influence decisions and marketing outcomes
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How consumer motivation and decision strategies differ between products that differ in their level of importance or interest for the consumer
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How marketers can adapt and improve their marketing campaigns and marketing strategies to more effectively reach consumers (Perner, 2003).
Apart from assisting in the area of marketing, the study of consumer behavior also aids policymakers in formulating rules and regulations concerning the uses and abuses of certain products and services. Likewise, the study of consumer behavior also helps environmentalists put measures into place to reduce the occurrence of improper waste disposal. By understanding consumer behavior, social marketers are also able to improve their marketing strategies, so as to get their ideas across to their target audience.