Marketing Mngmt - Consumer Behavior
Consumer behavior refers to the purchasing behavior of final customer or individual or household who buys goods & services for personal use. Customer behavior is very important as it supports product positioning, development of effective marketing strategy and enhancement of long-term customer relationship.
Consumer Behavior supports customer belief for performance, determines product features, formulates pricing policy and appreciates new product decision.
Factors Influencing Consumer Buying Behavior
There are some factors that influence the buying behavior of a customer or what we can say as the customer’s preference for buying a product.
Consumer behavior is basically dependent on the following four key factors −
Cultural factor − Factors like culture, sub-culture, and social class.
Social factor − Factors like reference group, secondary reference group, and family.
Personal factor − Factors like age, sex, lifestyle, occupation, and financial status.
Psychological factor − Factors like motivation, perception, belief, and attitude.
These are the main factors that influence the consumption and usage of any product in the market. Customers opt for some product primarily on the basis of these factors.
Buying Motive
Buying motive can be defined as the internal factor or condition that tends to start and sustain the buying activity. In short, buying motive is the reason a customer needs to purchase a product.
Buying motive can be of two types −
Product motive refers to those effects and reasons, which induce a buyer to select a particular product in preference to other products. They include the physical appeal of the product, like the design, shape, dimension, size, color, package, performance, price etc.
Patronage motive refers to those situations or reasons, which prompt a buyer to buy the desired product from a particular shop in preference to other shops. Patronage motive can further be subdivided as −
Emotional patronage − It includes factors like appearance of the shop, display of goods in the shop, imitations and many more.
Rotational patronage − It includes factors like convenience, price charged, services offered and many more.
