Consumer Behavior
Introduction
Consumer Behavior is an interdisciplinary field that incorporates the theories found in
psychology, sociology, and communication.
Consumer Behavior as a college course is far more theoretical than a marketing course
as marketing is more applied.
Basically consumer behaviorists ask two questions:
Why do people buy the products they buy and
Why do people not buy certain products.
Most of the literature of consumer behavior focuses on why people buy, but it is just as
Informative to determine why they don’t buy.
A product is not simply a product – it is what we refer in the language of the field, as a
bundle of attributes. Take the example of Ivory soap and what this bar of cleanser
represents in the mind of the consumer. It has claimed for over 100 years that it is 99-1/4
pure as well as being white in color, as a fragrance, and is juxtaposed often with a mom
and a baby. These are attributes.
Take a look at Brooklyn College’s attributes and think about why you are attending
school here. Certainly the tuition, location, reputation, curriculum all played a part in
your choice to come here.
So much of today’s research considers the attributes of a product.
People have beliefs as to how well a product will satisfy their expectations of an attribute.
Your belief that Brooklyn College’s reputation will be valuable upon you graduation
impacts your matriculation here. Thus research also focuses on beliefs The fact that you
believe that having a good reputation is important for a college again impacts you
evaluation of the competition.
One school of thought studies attributes. For example, consider automobiles. What
attributes might you consider upon purchasing a car? Perhaps safety, price, mileage,
warranty, comfort, style, performance, etc.
Another area studied in the field is the consideration of situations. I other words, the
situation of the buyer will directly impact on their purchase choices.
A researcher by the name of Belk identified 5 situational variables:
1. physical surroundings – these include environmental characteristics such as sounds,
music, lighting, aroma, weather. All of these situations effects what is purchased. Think
about how a store is laid out – in a grocery store the milk and bread tend to be far from
the front requiring the customer to walk through parts of the store and perhaps be
stimulated into buying other items. In a drug store, the pharmacy is in the back and thus
the customer again walks through the store and sees additional merchandise.
Moreover, high profit margin items tend to be at eye-level., although shelf space is a
complicated equation that includes multiple aspects of merchandising.
Both malls and casinos have very specific lighting plans. Both tend to be darker in the
mornings and lighter at night and thus distort our concepts of time. Do either have any
clocks? Do you see windows and thus outside light when you are in a store, casino or
mall?
2. social surroundings – the presence of other people may impact on your purchasing
behavior. Think about who you rub elbows with at Saks Fifth Avenue vs. K-Mart. When
others are purchasing high price ticket items, might you feel more inclined to also
indulge?
3. temporal perspective – the time of day, season or even the time between purchases will
impact upon purchase behavior
4. task definition – the purpose intended for the product. Is this something for your
personal use or is it a gift for someone else? Also who is the gift for – your friend or the
parents of your friend? We also need to consider the differences between cultures and
the fact that different cultures have different attitudes about gifts and what is appropriate.
For example, in certain cultures a gift of wine would be inappropriate. Also, to whom do
you actually give the gift? Some cultures it would be the lady of the house or the mom
and for others it is the father or even the tribal head (i.e., Fiji).
5. antecedent states – moods. If the shopper is tired or sick clearly this will effect the
products purchased.