MARKETING:
Marketing plays a vital role in countries economic development, particularly when he country becomes highly industrialized. It plays a dual sole in helping the producer to increase the sales volume on the one side and satisfying the consumer by providing his needs on the business function, deals with customers. Understanding, creating, communicating and delivering consumers value and satisfaction are at the very heart of modern marketing thinking and practice the too fold goal of the marketing is to attract new customer by promising superior value and to keep current customers by delivering satisfaction sound marketing is critical to the success of every organization – large or small, for profit or mt-for-profit, domestic or global at home, at school, where you work and where you play you are exposed to marketing in almost everything you do. Yet, there is much more to marketing than meets the consumers casual eye.
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR:
Consumer differ not only in the usual ways by age and gender, by education and occupation, by marital status and living arrangements – but also in their activities and interest, their preferences and opinions, the food, they eat and the product they buy.
DEFINITION:
The term consumer behaviour refers to the behaviour that consumers display in searching for purchasing; using, evaluating and disposing of products and services that they expect will satisfy their needs.
The study of consumer behaviour is the study of how individuals make decisions to spend their available resources (time, money, effort) on consumption related items. It includes the study of
What they buy, Why they buy it, When they buy it, Where they but it, How often they use it
For instance, we can take the simple product – Toothpaste.
What types of toothpaste do consumer buy – Regular, gel, floride triped, herbal.
What brand - National, Private, Generic, Local, International
Why brand - To prevent cavities, - To remove stains,
- To brighten or whiten teeth mouthwash - To attract romance
Where they buy it - Super Market, Drug store, Convenience
How often they buy it - Weekly, Bi-Weekly, Monthly, Daily IMPORTANCE OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR:
Consumer behaviour is helpful in understanding the purchase behaviour and preference of different consumers. As consumer, we differ in terms of our sex, education, occupation, income, family set up, religion, nationality and social status. Because of these different background factors we have different needs and we only buy those brands and services, which we think will satisfy our needs. In today’s work of rapidly changing technology-changing firms has to be constantly innovating and understand he latest consumers trends and testes consumer behaviour provides invaluable clues and guidelines to marketing on new technological, which they should explore.
A consumer decision to purchases a particular brand to services is the result is the complex interplay of a consumer of variables. The starting point for the company provides of decision process marketing, stimuli in the shape of brands, promotion, price and distribution strategy.
The potential consumer along with the other stimuli already existing receives the marketing stimuli in the environment. These stimuli may be social, economic, cultural, psychological and political in nature. At the point of receiving the marketing stimuli, the consumer already has a certain mental, emotional and psychological frame of mind developed over the years by his cultural, religious, social, family and psychological background.
A MODEL OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR:
The hoarding provided the initial stimulus for this purchase and consumption. This was further backed up by other stimuli such as brand display in the shop, watching other consumer buys a particulars brand, any point of purchase promotional material, earlier satisfaction with given brands etc., your response to this stimuli results in a purchase of particular brand, in between the process of receiving the stimuli responding to them you went through a decision making process. The stimuli, process of decision-making and response constitutes a simple method of consumer behaviour.
EXTERNAL FACTORS:
Input Marketing Stimuli Other Stimuli
Process Buyer Characteristics Buyer Decision
Psychological Process
Personal and Cultural Characteristics
There are 4 major factors, which influences the buying behaviour of consumers.
Cultural Factors
Social Factors
Personal Factors
Psychological Factors CULTURAL FACTORS:
Cultural factors exert the broadest and deepest influence on consumer behaviour.
Culture:
Cultural represents an over all social heritage, a distinctive from of environments adoption by a whole society of people. It includes a et of learned beliefs, values, attitudes, morals, customers, habits and forms of behaviour that the shaped by a society and transmitted to the generations with in that society. The child growing up in a society learns a basic set of values, perceptions, preferences and behaviour through a process of socialization invoicing the family and other key institutions.
Sub-Culture:
Each culture consists of smaller sub culture that provide more specific identification and socialization for its, sub culture includes nationalities, religious, social groups and geographical regions. Many sub culture make’s important market segments and marketers often design brands and marketing and marketing programmes tailored to their needs.
Cross Culture:
To determine whether and how to enter a foreign market, marketers a need to conduct some form of cross cultural consumers analysis. Cross culture is defined as the effort to determine to what extent the consumers of two or more nations are similar or different.
SOCIAL FACTORS:
Consumer behaviour is also influenced by such social factors as reference groups, family and social, roles and status.
Reference Groups:
A person has behaviour is strongly influenced by many groups.
As person’s references groups are those groups that have a direct (face-to-face) or indirect influence on the persons attitudes or behaviour. Group having a direct influencing on a person are called membership groups.
These are groups to which there is fairly continuous interaction such as family, friends and neighbours and secondary groups, which tend to be more formal and where there is less continuous interaction.
They include religious organizations, professional associations and trade unions.
FAMILY:
We can distinguish between two families in the buyers life the f family orientations consists of ones parents. From parents a person acquires an orientation towards religion, polities and economics and sense of personal ambition, self worth and love. The marketer needs to determine which member normally with the product on service, whether the husband is more dominant or the wife or they have influence.
Roles & Status:
A person participation in many groups throughout his life, family clubs, organizations etc, the position in each can be defined in the terms of role status. Marketers are aware of potential of products to become status symbol.
PERSONAL FACTORS:
Buyers decisions are also influenced by personal characteristics the buyers age and life stage cycles, occupation, economic circumstances, life style and personality and self-concept.
PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS:
Motivation:
Motivation can be described as the driving force with in individuals that impels them to action. This driving force is produced by a stage of tension, which exists as the results of an unfulfilled need.
Position:
Is defined as the process by which and individual selects, organizes and interprets stimuli into a meaningful and coherent picture of the world.
Marketing have to go beyond the various influences on buyers and develop an understanding of how consumers actually make their buying decision. Marketers must identify who makes buying decisions and step in the buying process.
BUYING ROLES:
For many brands, it is to identify the buyer. Other brands involve a decision-making unit consisting or more one person. This may happen due take of technical knowledge or experience or unaware of brands in the markets. Thus we can distinguish five roles peoples might play in buying decisions.
The person who makes the actual purchase.
USERS:
The person who consume or use the brand TYPES OF BUYING BEHAVIOUR:
Consumer decision-marketing various with the type of buying decision. There are great difference between buying toothpaste, a tennis rocket, a personal computer and a new tractor. Complex and expensive purchases are likely to involve more buyer deliberation and more participants. As sale distinguished four types of consumer – buying based on the degree of buyer involvement and the degree of difference among brands.
COMPLEX BUYING DECISION:
Consumer goes through complex buying behaviour when they are highly involved in a purchase and aware of significant differences among brands. Consumers are highly involved when the brand is expensive bought frequently risky and highly self-expensive. Typically the consumer doesn’t know much about the brand category and has much to learn.
DISSONANCE REDUCING BUYING BEHAVIOUR:
Sometimes the consumer is highly involved in a purchase but sees little difference in the brands the high involvement is based on the fast that the purchase inexpensive, infrequent and risky. In this case buyer will shop around to learn what is available but will buy fairly quickly perhaps responding primarily to a good price to purchase convenience. The consumer will be alert to information that justifies his or her decision.
Habitual Buying Behaviour:
Many brands are brought under conditions of low consumer involvement and the absence of significant brand differences. Consider broom, consumer has little involvement in the brand category. They go to the store and reach of the brand. If they keep reaching for the same brand, it is out of habit not strong brand loyalty.
There is good evidence that consumers have low involvement of brands, consumer does not pass through the normal belief attitude behaviour sequence. Consumers do not search extensively for information about brands evaluate their characteristics and make weighty decision on which brand to buy instead they are passive recipients of information as they watch television or see prints
advertisement. Advertisement repetitions create brand familiarity rather than brand conviction. Consumers don’t for a strong attitude towards a brand rather they select is because they are nor highly involved with the brand. Thus for low involvement brands the buying process begins with brand beliefs formed by passive learning and is followed by purchase behaviour which may be followed by evaluation.
VARIETY SEEKING BUYING BEHAVIOUR:
Some buying situation is characterized by low consumer involvement but significant differences. Here consumers after do a not of brand switching.
Brand switching occurs for sake of variety rather than dissatisfaction.