What is Consumer Buying Behavior?

Definition of Buying Behavior:
Buying Behavior is the decision processes and acts of people involved in buying and using products.Need to understand:

• why consumers make the purchases that they make?
• what factors influence consumer purchases?
• the changing factors in our society.

Consumer Buying Behavior refers to the buying behavior of the ultimate consumer. A firm needs to analyze buying behavior for:

• Buyers reactions to a firms marketing strategy has a great impact on the firms success.
• The marketing concept stresses that a firm should create a Marketing Mix (MM) that satisfies (gives utility to) customers, therefore need to analyze the what, where, when and how consumers buy.
• Marketers can better predict how consumers will respond to marketing strategies.

Stages of the Consumer Buying Process

Six Stages to the Consumer Buying Decision Process (For complex decisions). Actual purchasing is only one stage of the process. Not all decision processes lead to a purchase. All consumer decisions do not always include all 6 stages, determined by the degree of complexity...discussed next.The 6 stages are:

1. Problem Recognition(awareness of need)--difference between the desired state and the actual condition. Deficit in assortment of products. Hunger--Food. Hunger stimulates your need to eat.
   Can be stimulated by the marketer through product information--did not know you were deficient? I.E., see a commercial for a new pair of shoes, stimulates your recognition that you need a new pair of shoes.
2. Information search--
   • Internal search, memory.
   • External search if you need more information. Friends and relatives (word of mouth). Marketer dominated sources; comparison shopping; public sources etc.
   A successful information search leaves a buyer with possible alternatives, the evoked set.Hungry, want to go out and eat, evoked set is
   
   • chinese food
   • indian food
   • burger king
   • klondike kates etc
3. Evaluation of Alternatives--need to establish criteria for evaluation, features the buyer wants or does not want. Rank/weight alternatives or resume search. May decide that you want to eat something spicy, indian gets highest rank etc.
   If not satisfied with your choice then return to the search phase. Can you think of another restaurant? Look in the yellow pages etc. Information from different sources may be treated differently. Marketers try to influence by "framing" alternatives.
4. Purchase decision--Choose buying alternative, includes product, package, store, method of purchase etc.
5. Purchase--May differ from decision, time lapse between 4 & 5, product availability.
6. Post-Purchase Evaluation--outcome: Satisfaction or Dissatisfaction. Cognitive Dissonance, have you made the right decision. This can be reduced by warranties, after sales communication etc.
   After eating an indian meal, may think that really you wanted a chinese meal instead.

http://www.udel.edu/alex/chapt6.html

The central question for marketers is: How do consumers respond to various marketing efforts the company might use? The starting point is the stimulus response model of buyer behaviour shown in figure. This figure shows that marketing and other stimuli enter the consumer’s “black box’’ and produce certain responses. Marketers must figure out what is in the buyers’ black box. Marketing stimuli consist of the four Ps: product, price, place and promotion. Other stimuli include major forces and events in the buyer’s environment: economic, technological, political and cultural. All these inputs enter the buyer’s black box, where they are turned into a set of observable buyer responses: product choice, brand choice, dealer choice, purchase timing and purchase amount.

The marketer wants to understand how the stimuli are changed into responses inside the consumer’s black box, which has two parts. First, the buyer’s characteristsics influence how he or she perceives and reacts to the stimuli. Second, the buyer’s decision process itself affects the buyer’s behaviour. We look first at buyer characteristics as they affect buying behaviour and then discuss the buyer decision process. 

http://forbstudents.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/model-of-consumer-behavior.html

http://www.egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/35434/1/Unit-17.pdf

Engel, Kollat, Blackwell model (EKB model)

A comprehensive model of consumer behavior that was elaborated by James F. Engel, David T. Kollat and Roger D. Blackwell (1973).


GRAFIK


Each of the boxes in this "multimediation" model of consumer behavior represents a variable that may influence behaviour. The arrows connecting boxes describe relationships between variables as well as emphasizing that consumer behavior is a dynamic ongoing process.


The model shows that people are continually exposed to stimuli. A stimulus represents anything, generally inherent in the environment, that has the potential for triggering some kind of behavior. In general, marketing decision making can be viewed (at least in part) as putting together and controlling a set of stimuli intended to influence customer buying behaviour.