Chapter Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should he able to:
1. Name the elements of the stimulus-response model of consumer behavior.
2. Outline the major characteristics affecting consumer behavior, and list some of the specific cultural, social, personal, and psychological factors that influence consumers.
3. Explain the buyer decision process and discuss need recognition, information search, and evaluation of alternatives, the purchase decision, and post purchase behavior.
Marketers must exercise care in analyzing consumer behavior. Consumers often turn down what appears to be a winning offer. As soon as managers believe that they understand their customers, buyer decisions are made that appear to the irrational. But what looks like irrational behavior to a manager is completely rational to the consumer. Buying behavior is never simple. It is affected by many different factors, yet understanding it is the essential task of marketing management.
Chambers, Chacko, and Lewis have summarized the basic beliefs about consumer behavior into five premises. These premises provide a good basis on which to start a discussion of consumer behavior.2
• Premise 1: Consumer behavior is purposeful and goal oriented. As we mentioned in the introduction, what looks like irrational behavior to a manager is completely rational to a consumer.
• Premise 2: The consumer has free choice. Consumers do not have to pay attention to your marketing communications. Messages are processed selectively. In most cases the consumer has several products from which to choose.
• Premise 3: Consumer behavior is a process. Marketers need to understand the process.
• Premise 4: Consumer behavior can be influenced. By understanding the purchase decision process and the influences on this process, marketers can influence how consumers behave.
• Premise 5: There is a need for consumer education. Consumers may act against their own interests because of a lack of knowledge. For...