C-2

• refers to the study of how individuals, groups, or organizations select, purchase, use, or dispose of products, services, ideas, or experiences to satisfy their needs and desires.

  Consumer Behavior
• -is a multi-stage process that involves identifying problems, collecting data, exploring options, making a decision to buy, and evaluating the experience afterward

  Consumer behavior
• is a dynamic process because the acquisition, consumption & disposition can occur in a dynamic order. 

  Consumer behavior
• The object of marketing is to help people provide solutions to their problems- in marketing terms it means satisfying needs. But before a need is satisfied, it must be identified.

  Problem recognition
• After recognizing his need, the consumer who is properly motivated attempts to conduct an information search. 

  Consumer information Processing
• There are two ways of conducting information search:

  Internal search and external search
• When the consumer scans his memory for experiences with products he thinks will satisfy his need, it is referred to as internal search.

  Internal search
• is an attempt to generate information outside of the consumer’s personal experiences. 

  External Search
• When the list is ready, the alternatives indicated will be evaluated with the use of a criteria like price, functions, quality & the likes. 

  Evaluation of alternatives
• After evaluating the alternatives the consumer will have a tentative answer on “what to buy” but he still has to find the answers to the question “where & when to buy.

  Purchase
• This is of utmost importance to marketers and because this is so, the immediate concern is to determine the consumer’s behavior after purchase is made

  Post purchase evaluation
• The consumer’s satisfaction level about the purchase of a product or service may be classified into any of the ff: 

  Highly satisfied, somewhat satisfied, disatisfied
• The consumer’s buying behavior is affected by three factors: 

  psychological variables, social influence and the purchase situation
• The buying behavior of the consumer is affected by: 

  Motivation, perception, learning, attitude, lifestyle
•  happens as a result of the “drive stimulus” which, in turn, is the result of an unsatisfied need. Need is a thing of service that is required by a human being for his health & well-being. The need that moves a person to action is called “drive”.

  Motivation
• Why do people act differently from one another? It is because one person’s needs and attitudes are different from another person’s. Because of the difference, perception about any stimulus differs from person to person. 

  Perception
• This happens when a person pays attention only to messages that are not against his attitude and beliefs

  Selective exposure
•  This occurs when the person who has selected the information he wants to be exposed to, avoids contradictory information. 

  Selected attention
• This means the person interprets selected information to conform with his attitude and beliefs. 

  Selected comprehension
•  This occurs when a person receives many kinds of information but tends to remember only those that conforms with his attitudes & beliefs.

  Selected retention
•  A change in behavior occurring as a result of past experience is called

  Learning
• A person's feelings about something like a product, an advertisement, a salesman, a company or an idea

  attitude
• Factors Influencing Attitude Formation

  Family influences, peer group influences, Information, Experience, Personality
• The consumer behavior is also influenced by his relationships with other people, formal or informal

  Social Influences
• The views, opinions & behavior of other persons oftentimes influence the purchasing decision of the consumer. 

  Perception
• Personal influence that are important to marketers comes from the following sources: 

  opinion leader word of mouth
• These are the groups that are looked upon by concerned members when forming an attitude about a particular topic. 

  Reference group
• Consumer buying behavior is influenced by three sources related to family as a concern: Consumer socialization, family life cycle & family decision-making. 

  Family
• refers to the process by which consumers learn the nuances of purchasing 

  Consumer socialization
• As the family passes from one stage to another, changes in income and family situation also happens. 

  Family life cycle
• It is also important to provide answers to the following: who influences the decision maker, who does the purchasing & who uses the product. 

  Family decision making
•  is a big influence on his buying behavior. -- to a group of people who have approximately equal position as viewed by others in the society. __may be roughly subdivided into upper, middle and lower classes. 

  Social class
• The set of values, beliefs, attitudes, and behavior patterns shared by the members of the society and transmitted to the next generation through socialization is called culture. 

  Culture
• Is derived from the reason why the consumer is making a purchase and this affects buying behavior. 

  Purchase task
• Refer to the situation of people present in the purchase area. 

  the Physical sorrounding
•  May also affect the purchase decision of the consumer. 

  Physical surrounding
• The time of the day the purchase is made and the time available for shopping are ---that may affect purchasing behavior. 

  Temporal Effects
• The time of the day the purchase is made and the time available for shopping are temporal effects that may affect purchasing behavior. 

  Antecedent States
• The purchase decision process is also affected by the purchase situation. The situational influences consist of the ff: 

  Purchase task, social surrounding, Physical surrounding, Temporal effects, antecedent states