Chapter Three
Consumer and Business
Buyer Behavior
3.1 Consumer Buyer Behavior
• The aim of marketing is to meet and satisfy
target customers’ needs and wants.
• The field of customer behavior studies how
individuals, groups, and organizations select,
buy, use, and dispose of goods, services, ideas,
or experiences to satisfy their needs and
desires.
3.1 Consumer Buyer Behavior
• Consumer buyer behavior refers to the buying
behavior of final consumers-individuals and
households who buy goods and services for
personal consumption.
• All of these final consumers combine to make up
the consumer market. Understanding customers’
behavior and “Knowing customers “is never simple.
• Studying consumers provides clues for developing
new products, product features, prices, channels,
message, and other marketing- mix elements.
Model of Consumer Behavior
• The central question for marketers is: How do
consumers respond to various marketing
efforts the company might use?
3.1 Consumer Buyer Behavior
3.1.1 Major Factors Influencing Buyer Behavior /
Buyer Characteristics/
• Consumer purchases are influenced
strongly by cultural, social, personal, and
psychological characteristics.
1. Cultural Factors:
1. Culture
2. Subculture
3. Social Class
2. Social Factors
• Reference Groups
–Groups having a direct influence on a person are called membership
groups.
–Aspirational groups are those a person hopes to join.
–Opinion Leader is the person who offers advice or information about a
specific product.
• Family
• Roles and Status
–A role consists of the activities people are expected to perform
according to the persons around them.
–Role carries a status reflecting the general esteem given to it
by society.
3. Personal Factors
• Age and Life-Cycle Stage
• Occupation
• Economic Circumstances
• Lifestyle is a person's pattern of living as
expressed in his or her psychographics.
• Personality refers to the unique psychological
characteristics that lead to relatively consistent
and lasting responses to one's own
environment.
4. Psychological Factors
• Motivation
• Perception
• Learning
• Beliefs and Attitudes
– A belief is a descriptive thought that a person
has about something.
3.1.2. The Buyer Decision Process
1. Need Recognition
1. Internal stimuli
2. External stimuli
2. Information Search
– Personal sources: family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances.
– Commercial sources: advertising, salespeople, dealers,
packaging, displays.
– Public sources: mass media, consumer-rating
organizations.
– Experiential sources: handling, examining, using the
product.
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3. Evaluation of Alternatives
4. Purchase Decision
– Attitudes of others
– unexpected situational factors
5. Post purchase Behavior
3.2 Organizational /Business/ Buyer
Behavior
• Business /organizational/ buyer behavior refers to
the buying behavior of the organizations that buy
goods and services for use in the production of
other products and services that are sold, rented,
or supplied to others.
• It also includes the behavior of retailing and
wholesaling firms that acquire goods to resell or
rent them to others at a profit.
3.2.1 Business Market vs. Consumer Market
1. Market Structure and Demand
• Fewer but far larger buyers
• Geographically concentrated buyers
• Derived demand
• Inelastic demand
• Fluctuating demand
2. Nature of the Buying Unit
3. Types of Decisions and the Decision Process
Buying Situations
• There are three major types of buying situations. At one
extreme is the straight re-buy, which is a fairly routine
decision.
• At the other extreme is the new task purchase, which
may call for thorough research.
• In the middle is the modified re-buy, which requires
some research.
1. Straight Re-buy
2. Modified Re-buy
3. New Task Purchase
3.2.3 Participants in the Organizational Buying
Process
• Users: initiate the buying proposal and help define
product specifications
• Influencers: define specifications,
– Technical personnel are particularly important influencers.
• Buyers: select or approve the final suppliers
• Deciders: formal or informal
• Get keeper: control the flow of information to others
