Module 6

Consumer Buying Behaviour

By: Dr Shahinaz Abdellatif

 Objectives of the Session
• To adopt the viewpoint of the individual consumer

• To identify the psychological process underlying

buying behaviour
 Consumer Decision Making
• Consumer decision making is essentially a problem-solving
process.
• Most customers, whether individual consumers or
organisational buyers, go through similar mental processes in
deciding which products and brands to buy.
• These differences reflect variations in consumers’ personal
characteristics – their needs, benefits sought, attitudes,
values, past experiences, and lifestyles – and their social
influences – their social class, reference groups, and family
situations.
 The Consumer Decision
Process
• Problem identification
• Information search
• Evaluation of alternatives
• Purchase
• Post-purchase evaluation
 1- Problem Identification
• Consumers’ purchase-decision processes are
triggered by unsatisfied needs or wants.
• Individuals perceive differences between ideal and
actual states on some physical or socio-psychological
dimension.
• This motivates customers to seek products or services
to help bring their current state more into balance
with the ideal.
 2- Information search
• The consumer’s next step is to refer to information gained
from past experience and stored in memory for possible later
use.
• People seek additional information about alternative brands
until they perceive that the costs of obtaining more
information are equal to the additional value or benefit derived
from the information.
• The biggest cost when searching for information is the
opportunity cost of the time involved in seeking information.
There are also psychological costs involved in searching for
information.
 2- Information search
• Consumers use information from different sources for
different purposes and at different stages within the decision
process.
• Public sources include noncommercial and professional
organisations and individuals who provide advice for
consumers, such as governmental agencies, and consumer-
interest groups.
• Consumers are usually exposed to more information from
commercial sources than from personal or public sources.
• However, many consumers are influenced more by personal
sources when deciding which service, product, or brand to
buy.
2- Factors affecting Information search
 3- Evaluation of alternatives
• Consumers find it difficult to make overall comparisons of
many alternative brands because each brand might be better in
some ways but worse in others.
• Instead, consumers simplify their evaluation in several ways.
First, they seldom consider all possible brands; rather, they
focus on their evoked set – a limited number they are familiar
with that are likely to satisfy their needs.
• Second, consumers evaluate each of the brands in the evoked
set on a limited number of product dimensions or attributes.
• Consumers also judge the relative importance of these
attributes, or the minimum acceptable performance of each.
The set of attributes used by a particular consumer and the
relative importance of each represent the consumer’s choice
criteria.
 3- Evaluation of alternatives
• Consumers use many dimensions or attributes when
evaluating alternative products and services.
• Different consumers may use different sets of
attributes to evaluate brands within the same product
category.
 Selected Attributes Consumers Use to
Evaluate Alternative Products or Services

Category Specific attributes

Cost attributes Purchase price, operating costs, repair costs, cost
of extras or options, cost of installation, trade-in
allowance, likely resale value.

Durability, quality of materials, construction,

Performance attributes dependability, functional performance
(acceleration, nutrition, taste), efficiency, safety,
styling.
Reputation of brand, status image, popularity with
Social attributes friends, popularity with family members (Do the
kids like the taste of Oscar Mayer hot dogs?),
style, fashion.
Carried by local stores, credit terms, quality of
service available from local dealer, delivery time.
Availability attributes
 4- Purchase
• Choosing a source from which to buy the product involves
essentially the same mental processes as does a product-
purchase decision.
• The source is usually a retail store but may also be a mail-
order catalogue or a website.
• Consumers obtain information about alternative sources from
personal experience, advertising, comments of friends, and the
like. Then they use this information to evaluate sources on
such attributes as lines of merchandise carried, services
rendered, price, convenience, personnel, and physical
characteristics. Consumers usually select the source they
perceive to be best on those attributes most important to them.
 4- Post-purchase evaluation
• Whether a particular consumer feels adequately
rewarded following a purchase depends on two
things:
• (1) the person’s aspiration or expectation level –
how well the product was expected to perform.
• (2) the consumer’s evaluation of how well the
product actually did perform
 Consumer Decision Making
The decision process pursued by a given consumer
can be classified into one of four categories
depending on whether
(1) the consumer has a high or low level of product
involvement, and
(2) he or she engages in an extensive search for
information and evaluation of alternative brands
or makes the decision routinely.
 Consumer Decision Making
Extent of involvement
Extent of analysis High Low
Extended (information Complex decision Limited decision
search; consideration making (cars, making, including
of brand alternatives) homes, variety seeking
vacations) and impulse
purchasing (adult
cereals and snack
foods)

Habit/routine (little or no Brand loyalty Inertia (frozen

information search; (athletic shoes, vegetables, paper
focus on one brand) cologne, towels)
deodorant)
 High Involvement purchases
• High involvement purchases involve goods or
services that are psychologically important to the
buyer because they address social or ego needs and
therefore carry social and psychological risks (e.g.,
the risk of looking foolish to one’s family or friends).
• They may also involve a lot of money and therefore
financial risk. Because a consumer’s level of
involvement with a particular purchase depends on
the needs to be satisfied and the resources available.
 High Involvement purchases

• The first type of high-involvement purchases may

involve complex decision making in case of extended
information search and evaluation of competing
brands (such as cars, vacation).
• The second type of high-involvement purchases is
more habitual/routine involving little or no
information search and focus on one brand
( such as perfume). Highly brand-loyal customers
resist competitive efforts on account of their strong
brand preference.
 Low involvement Decision
• Because low-involvement products are not very important to
consumers, the search for information to evaluate alternative
brands is likely to be minimal. As a result, decisions to buy
these products often are made within the store, either
impulsively on the basis of brand familiarity, or as a result of
comparisons of the brands on the shelf. The consumers’
involvement and their risks associated with making poor
decisions are low for such products.
• Most purchase decisions are low in consumer involvement –
the consumer thinks the product or service is insufficiently
important to identify with it.
• Therefore, consumers are less likely to stay with the same
brand over time. They have little to lose by switching brands
in a search for variety.
 Inertia
• There are two low-involvement buying decisions. When there are
few differences between brands and little risk associated with
making a poor choice, consumers either buy brands at random or
buy the same brand repetitively to avoid making a choice.
• If no problems are experienced during consumption, consumers may
continue to buy the brand out of inertia, at least until a competitor
offers an attractive price promotion.
• Thus, Marketers must be careful not to confuse such repeat inertial
purchasing with brand loyalty because it is relatively easy for
competitors to entice such customers to switch brands by offering
cents-off coupons, special promotions, or in-store displays.
 Impulse Purchasing and Variety
Seeking
• The second low-involvement purchase process is
impulse buying, when consumers impulsively decide
to buy a different brand from their customary choice
or some new variety of a product. The new brand is
probably one they are familiar with through passive
exposure to advertising or other information,
however.
• Their motivation for switching usually is not
dissatisfaction but a desire for change and variety.
 Strategies to Increase Consumer
Involvement
• The product might be linked to some involving issue
(such as when makers of bran cereals associate their
products with a high-fiber diet ).
• The product can be tied to a personally involving
situation (such as advertising a sleeping aid ).
• Finally, an important new feature might be added to
an unimportant product (ex; Revlon introduced its
ColorStay Lipcolor)
Inertia
 Simplified Hierarchy of Social Forces
Affecting Consumer Behavior

Culture—subculture

Social Social class—reference groups—family

Demographics, including stage in
Personal
family life cycle—lifestyle
Perception, memory, needs
Psycho-
Attitudes toward product class
logical
Attitudes toward brands

Consumption