CHAPTER 6
Consumer Buying Behavior
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PURPOSE AND PERSPECTIVE
The chapter begins by defining buying behavior and consumer buying behavior. It recognizes and
describes the major stages of the consumer buying decision process—problem recognition, information
search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase, and post-purchase evaluation. It then examines how the
customer’s level of involvement affects the type of problem solving employed and discuss the types of
consumer decision making processes, including routinized response behavior, limited decision making,
extended decision making, and impulse buying. Next, it discusses in detail the situational, psychological,
and social influences on the consumer decision-making process. Situational influences include physical
surroundings, social surroundings, time perspective, purchase reason, and the buyer’s momentary mood
and condition. The primary psychological influences on consumer behavior are perception, motives,
learning, attitudes, personality and self-concept, and lifestyles. Forces other people exert on buying
behavior are called social influences. Social influences include the influence of roles, families, reference
groups and opinion leaders, social class, and culture and subcultures.
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LECTURE OUTLINE
Introduction
A. Buying behavior is the decision processes and acts of people involved in buying and using
products.
B. Consumer buying behavior refers to the buying behavior of ultimate consumers—those who
purchase products for personal use and not for business purposes.
I. Consumer Buying Decision Process
A. The consumer buying decision process includes five stages—problem recognition, information
search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase, and postpurchase evaluation (Figure 6.1).
1. This process can be affected by numerous influences, which are categorized as situational,
psychological, and social.
2. The actual act of purchasing is usually not the first stage of the process.
3. Not all decision processes lead to an ultimate purchase; individuals may terminate the
process at any stage.
4. Not all consumer decisions include all five stages.
B. Problem Recognition
1. Problem recognition occurs when a buyer becomes aware of a difference between a desired
state and an actual condition.
2. The speed of consumer problem recognition can be rapid or slow.
3. It is possible that a person has a problem or need but is unaware of it until marketers point it
out.
a. Marketers use sales personnel, advertising, and packaging to help trigger recognition
of such needs or problems.
C. Information Search
1. After recognizing the problem or need, the buyer will decide whether or not to pursue
satisfying their need.
a. If the consumer chooses to move forward, he or she will next search for product
information to help resolve the problem or satisfy the need.
2. An information search has two aspects:
a. In an internal search, buyers search their memories for information about products
that might solve their problem.
b. If buyers cannot retrieve enough information from memory to make a decision, they
seek additional information from outside sources in an external search.
(1) The external search may focus on communication with friends or relatives,
comparison of available brands and prices, marketer-dominated sources, and/or
public sources.
(2) Consumers may also use marketer-dominated sources of information, such as
salespeople, advertising, websites, package labeling, and in-store
demonstrations and displays because they typically require little effort.
(3) The Internet has become a major resource during the consumer buying decision
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process, with its many sources for product descriptions and reviews and the ease
of comparing prices.
(4) Buyers can also obtain information from independent sources—for instance,
government reports, news presentations, publications such as Consumer
Reports, and reports from product-testing organizations.
3. Repetition, a technique well-known to advertisers, increases consumers’ information
retention and recall.
a. When they see or hear an advertising message for the first time, recipients may not
grasp all of its important details, but they recall more details as the message is
repeated.
b. However, marketers should be wary not to repeat a message too many times, as
consumers can grow tired of it and begin to respond unfavorably.
D. Evaluation of Alternatives
1. A successful information search within a product category yields a group of brands that a
buyer views as possible alternatives.
a. This group of brands is sometimes called a consideration set (or an evoked set).
b. Consumers assign a greater value to a brand they have heard of than to one they have
not.
2. To assess the products in a consideration set, the buyer uses evaluative criteria—objective
characteristics (such as the size) and subjective characteristics (such as style) that are
important to him or her.
a. The buyer rates and eventually ranks brands in the consideration set using the selected
evaluative criteria.
3. Marketers can influence consumers’ evaluations by framing the alternatives—that is,
describing the alternatives and their attributes in a certain manner.
a. Framing can make a characteristic seem more important to a consumer and facilitate
its recall from memory.
E. Purchase
1. In the purchase stage, the consumer chooses to buy the product or brand yielded by the
evaluation of alternatives.
2. Product availability may influence which brand is ultimately purchased.
3. During this stage, buyers also pick the seller from which they will buy the product—it could
be a specific retail shop, chain, or online retailer.
a. The choice of seller may affect final product selection and therefore the terms of sale,
which, if negotiable, are determined at this stage.
F. Postpurchase Evaluation
1. After the purchase, the buyer evaluates the product to ascertain if its actual performance
meets expected levels.
2. Many criteria used in evaluating alternatives are applied again during postpurchase
evaluation in order to make a comparison.
3. Shortly after the purchase of an expensive product, evaluation may result in cognitive
dissonance, doubts in the buyer’s mind about whether purchasing the product was the right
decision.
a. Cognitive dissonance is most likely to arise when a person recently bought an
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expensive, high-involvement product that is found lacking compared to desirable
features of competing brands.
(1) Marketers sometimes attempt to reduce cognitive dissonance by having
salespeople call or e-mail recent customers to make sure they are satisfied with
their new purchases.
4. Three major categories of influences are believed to affect the consumer buying decision
process—situational, psychological, and social.
II. Types of Consumer Decision Making and Level of Involvement
A. To acquire products that satisfy their current and future needs, consumers engage in different types
of decision making processes that vary depending on the nature of the product.
B. The amount of effort, both mental and physical, that buyers expend in solving problems also varies
considerably with the cost and type of product.
C. A major determinant of the type of problem–solving process employed depends on the customer’s
level of involvement—the degree of interest in a product, and the importance the individual places
on that product.
1. High-involvement products tend to be those that are visible to others (such as real estate or
high-end electronics) and are more expensive. High-importance issues, such as health care,
are also associated with high levels of involvement.
2. Low-involvement products are much less expensive and have less associated social risk,
such as grocery or drugstore items.
3. A person’s interest in a product or product category that is ongoing and long-term is referred
to as enduring involvement.
4. Situational involvement is temporary and dynamic and results from a particular set of
circumstances, such as the sudden need to buy a new bathroom faucet after the current one
starts leaking and will not stop.
5. Consumer involvement may be attached to product categories (such as sports), loyalty to a
specific brand, interest in a specific advertisement (e.g., a funny commercial) or a medium
(such as a television show), or to certain decisions and behaviors (e.g., a love of shopping).
6. There are three types of consumer decision making, which vary in involvement level and
other factors:
a. A consumer uses routinized response behavior when buying frequently purchased,
low-cost items that require very little search-and-decision effort.
b. Buyers engage in limited decision making when they purchase products occasionally
or from unfamiliar brands in a familiar product category. This type of decision making
requires slightly more time for information gathering and deliberation.
c. The most complex type of decision making, extended decision making, occurs with
high-involvement, unfamiliar, expensive, or infrequently-purchased items—for
instance, a car, home, or college education. The buyer uses many criteria to evaluate
alternative brands or choices and spends much time seeking information and deciding
before making the purchase.
7. Purchase of a specific product does not elicit the same type of decision making process
every time. Consumer may engage in extended decision making the first time they buy a
product, but find that limited decision making suffices when they buy it again.
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8. Impulse buying involves no conscious planning and stems from a powerful urge to buy
something immediately.
III. Situational Influences on the Buying Decision Process
A. Situational influences result from circumstances, time, and location that affect the consumer
buying decision process.
B. Situational factors can influence the buyer during any stage of the consumer buying decision
process, and may cause the individual to shorten, lengthen, or terminate the process.
C. Situational factors can be divided into five categories:
1. Physical surroundings include location, store atmosphere, scents, sounds, lighting, weather,
and other factors in the physical environment in which the decision process occurs.
a. Retail chains try to design their store environment and layout in a way that makes
shopping as enjoyable and easy as possible, so consumers are more inclined to linger
and make purchases.
2. Social surroundings include characteristics and interactions of others who are present during
a purchase decision, such as friends, relatives, salespeople, and other customers.
a. Buyers may feel pressured to behave in a certain way because they are in a public
place such as a restaurant, store, or sports arena.
3. The time dimension influences the buying decision process in several ways.
a. It takes varying amounts of time to progress through the steps of the buying decision
process, including learning about, searching for, purchasing, and using a product.
b. Time also plays a role when consumers consider the frequency of product use, the
length of time required to use it, and the overall product life.
c. Other time dimensions that can influence purchases include time of day, day of the
week or month, seasons, and holidays.
4. Buyer’s moods (e.g. anger or anxiety) or conditions (e.g., fatigue or illness) may also affect
the consumer buying decision process.
a. They can affect a person’s ability and desire to search for or receive information, or
seek and evaluate alternatives.
b. Moods can also significantly influence a consumer’s post-purchase evaluation.
IV. Psychological Influences on the Buying Decision Process
A. Psychological influences partly determine people’s general behavior and thus influence their
behavior as consumers.
B. Even though psychological factors operate internally, they are strongly affected by external social
forces.
C. Perception
1. Perception is the process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting information inputs to
produce meaning.
2. Information inputs are sensations received through sight, taste, hearing, smell, and touch.
3. Perception is complicated and can be influenced and compounded by different factors.
4. Perception can be interpreted different ways because, although consumers constantly receive
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pieces of information, only a few reach their awareness.
a. Consumers would be completely overwhelmed if they paid equal attention to all
sensory inputs, so they select some and ignore others.
b. This process is called selective exposure because an individual selects (mostly
unconsciously) which inputs will reach awareness.
c. An individual’s current set of needs affects selective exposure.
d. Information inputs that relate to one’s strongest needs are more likely to reach
conscious awareness.
5. The selective nature of perception may also result in two other conditions:
a. Selective distortion is changing or twisting received information. It occurs when a
person receives information inconsistent with personal feelings or beliefs, and he or
she interprets the information, changing its meaning to align more closely with
expectations.
b. In selective retention, a person remembers information inputs that support personal
feelings and beliefs and forgets inputs that do not.
6. The second step in the process of perception is perceptual organization.
a. Information inputs that reach awareness are not received in an organized form.
b. To produce meaning, an individual must organize and integrate new information with
what is already stored in memory.
c. People use several methods to achieve this:
(1) One method called closure occurs when a person fills in missing information in
a way that conforms to a pattern or statement. In an attempt to draw attention to
its brand, an advertiser may capitalize on closure by using incomplete images,
sounds, or statements in its advertisements.
7. Interpretation, the third step in the perceptual process, involves assigning meaning to what
has been organized.
a. A person interprets information according to what he or she expects or what is
familiar.
8. Although marketers cannot control buyers’ perceptions, they often try to influence them.
a. A consumer’s perceptual process may operate such that a seller’s information never
reaches the target.
b. A buyer may receive information but perceive it differently than was intended, as
occurs in selective distortion.
c. A buyer who perceives information inputs to be inconsistent with prior beliefs is likely
to forget the information quickly, as in the case with selective retention.
D. Motives
1. A motive is an internal energizing force that directs a person’s behavior toward satisfying
needs or achieving goals.
a. Buyers are affected by a set of motives rather than just one.
b. At any point of time, certain motives will have a stronger influence on a person than
others.
c. Motives affect the direction and intensity of behavior.
2. According to Abraham Maslow, humans seek to satisfy five levels of needs, from most to
least basic to survival (Figure 6.2).
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a. The pyramid is known as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
b. Maslow proposed that people are constantly striving to move up the hierarchy,
fulfilling one level of needs, then aspiring to fulfill the next.
c. At the most basic level are physiological needs, requirements for survival such as
food, water, sex, clothing, and shelter.
d. At the next level are safety needs, which include security and freedom from physical
and emotional pain and suffering.
e. Next are social needs—the human requirements for love and affection and a sense of
belonging.
f. At the level of esteem needs, people require respect and recognition from others as
well as self-esteem, a sense of one’s own worth.
g. At the top of the hierarchy are self-actualization needs. These refer to people’s need to
grow and develop and to become all they are capable of becoming.
3. Motives that influence which establishments a customer frequents are called patronage
motives.
a. A buyer may shop at a specific store because of such patronage motives as price,
service, location, product variety, or friendliness of salespeople.
E. Learning
1. Learning refers to changes in a person’s thought processes and behaviors caused by
information and experience.
2. Consequences of behavior strongly influence the learning process.
a. Behaviors that result in positive consequences tend to be repeated.
3. The type of information inexperienced buyers use may differ from the type used by
experienced shoppers who are familiar with the product and purchase situation.
4. Purchasing decisions require that customers process information, an ability that varies by
individual.
5. Marketers help customers learn about their products by helping them gain experience with
them, which makes customers feel more comfortable.
a. Free samples, sometimes coupled with coupons, can successfully encourage trial and
reduce purchase risk.
6. Consumers learn by experiencing products indirectly through information from salespeople,
advertisements, websites, friends, and relatives.
a. Through sales personnel and advertisements, marketers offer information before (and
sometimes after) purchases that can create favorable consumer attitudes toward the
product.
F. Attitudes
1. An attitude is an individual’s enduring evaluation of feelings about and behavioral
tendencies toward a tangible or intangible object or idea.
2. Although attitudes can change over time, they generally remain stable and do not vary,
particularly in the short term.
3. An attitude consists of three major components:
a. Cognitive—the person’s knowledge and information about an object or idea
b. Affective—the individual’s feelings and emotions toward an object or idea
c. Behavioral—the person’s actions regarding an object or idea
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products purchased.
(1) Because of this believed relation, marketers aim advertising at specific
personality types.
2. Self-concept (sometimes called self-image) is one’s perception or view of oneself.
a. Research shows that buyers purchase products that reflect and enhance their self–
concepts and that purchase decisions are important to the development and
maintenance of a stable self-concept.
b. Consumers’ self-concepts can influence whether they buy a product in a specific
product category and may affect brand selection as well as the retailers they frequent.
H. Lifestyles
1. A lifestyle is an individual’s pattern of living expressed through activities, interests, and
opinions.
2. Lifestyle patterns include the ways people spend time, the extent of their interaction with
others, and their general outlook on life.
3. People partially determine their own lifestyles, but it is also affected by personality and
demographic factors such as age, education, income, and social class.
4. Lifestyles have a strong impact on many aspects of the consumer buying decision process,
from problem recognition to postpurchase evaluation.
5. Lifestyles influence consumers’ product needs, brand preferences, types of media used, and
how and where they shop.
6. One of the most popular frameworks for exploring consumer lifestyles is PRIZM.
a. PRIZM divides U.S. consumers into 66 distinct groups based on numerous variables
such as education, income, technology use, employment, and social groups.
V. Social Influences on the Buying Decision Process
A. Forces that other people exert on buying behavior are called social influences.
1. They are divided into five major groups—roles, family, reference groups and opinion
leaders, social classes, and culture and subcultures.
B. Roles
1. All of us occupy positions within groups, organizations, and institutions.
a. In these positions we play one or more roles, which are sets of actions and activities a
person in a particular position is supposed to perform based on expectations of both
the individual and surrounding persons.
2. Because every person occupies numerous positions, they have many roles.
3. An individual’s roles influence both general behavior and buying behavior.
a. The demands of a person’s many roles may be diverse and even at times inconsistent
or at odds.
C. Family Influences
1. Family influences have a direct impact on the consumer buying decision process.
2. Consumer socialization is the process through which a person acquires the knowledge and
skills to function as a consumer.
3. The extent to which different family members take part in family decision making varies
among families and product categories.
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a. Traditional family decision making processes are divided into four categories—
autonomic, husband dominant, wife dominant, and syncratic (Table 6.2).
4. The family life cycle stage affects individual and joint needs of family members.
a. Family life-cycle changes can affect which family members are involved in purchase
decisions and the types of products purchased.
5. When two or more family members participate in a purchase, their roles may dictate that
each is responsible for performing certain purchase-related tasks, such as initiating the idea,
gathering information, determining if the product is affordable, deciding whether to buy the
product, or selecting the specific brand.
a. The specific purchase tasks performed depend on the types of products being
considered, the kind of family purchase decision process typically employed, and the
presence and amount of influence children have in the decision process.
6. Within a household, an individual may perform one or more buying-decision roles.
a. The gatekeeper is the household member who collects and controls information,
including price and quality comparisons, locations of sellers, and assessment of which
brand best suits the household’s needs.
b. The influencer is a family member who tries to influence buying decisions by
expressing his or her opinions.
c. The decider is a member who makes the buying choice.
d. The buyer is the family member who actually makes the purchase.
e. The user is a household member who consumes or uses the product.
D. Reference Groups
1. A reference group is a group, either large or small, with which a person identifies so
strongly that he or she adopts the values, attitudes, and behavior of the group members.
2. In general, there are three major types of reference groups—membership, aspirational, and
dissociative.
a. A membership reference group is one to which an individual actually belongs, with
which the individual identifies intensely enough to take on the values, attitudes, and
behaviors of people in that group.
b. An aspirational reference group is one to which a person aspires to belong. The
aspiring member desires to be like group members.
c. A group that a person does not wish to be associated with is a
disassociativedissociative or negative reference group.
3. A reference group may serve as an individual’s point of comparison and source of
information.
a. A customer’s behavior may change over time to be more in line with the actions and
beliefs of group members.
4. Reference group can affect whether a person does or does not buy a product at all, buys a
type of product within a product category, or buys a specific brand.
5. The extent to which a reference group affects a purchase decision depends on the product’s
conspicuousness and on the individual’s susceptibility to reference group influence.
6. A marketer sometimes tries to use reference group influence in advertisements by suggesting
that people in a specific group buy a product and are satisfied with it.
E. Opinion Leaders
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1. An opinion leader is a member of an informal group who provides information about a
specific topic, such as smartphones, to other group members seeking information.
a. The opinion leader is in a position or has knowledge or expertise that makes him or
her a credible source of information on a few topics.
2. An opinion leader is likely to be most influential when consumers have high product
involvement but low product knowledge, when they share the opinion leader’s values and
attitudes, and when the product details are numerous or complicated.
F. Social Classes
1. A social class is an open aggregate of people with similar social rank.
a. A class is referred to as open because people can move into and out of it.
2. Criteria for grouping people into classes vary from one society to another.
a. In the United States, many factors are taken into account, including occupation,
education, income, wealth, race, ethnic group, and possessions.
b. Analyses of social class in the United States divide people into three to seven class
categories (Table 6.4).
3. To some degree, individuals within social classes develop and assume common behavioral
patterns.
a. They may have similar attitudes, values, language patterns, and possessions.
4. Because people most frequently interact with others within their own social class, people are
more likely to be influenced by others within their own class than by those in other classes.
5. Social class also influences people’s spending, saving, and credit practices.
a. It can determine the type, quality, and quantity of products a person buys and uses.
G. Culture and Subcultures
1. Culture is the accumulation of values, knowledge, beliefs, customs, objects, and concepts
that a society uses to cope with its environment and passes on to future generations.
2. Culture permeates most things people do and objects they interact with, from the style of
buildings in their town, to the education they receive, to the laws governing their country.
3. Culture influences buying behavior because it saturates people’s daily lives.
a. Their culture determines what they wear and eat and where they reside and travel.
4. Global marketers will find that people in other regions of the world have different attitudes,
values, and needs, which call for different methods of doing business and different marketing
mixes.
5. A subculture is a group of individuals whose characteristics, values, and behavioral patterns
are similar within the group and different from those of people in the surrounding culture.
a. Subcultural boundaries are often based on geographic designations and demographic
characteristics, such as age, religion, race, and ethnicity.
b. Subcultures can play a significant role in how people respond to advertisements,
particularly when pressured to make a snap judgment.
c. It is important for marketers to understand that a person can be a member of more than
one subculture and that the behavioral patterns and values attributed to specific
subcultures do not necessarily apply to all group members.
d. The population growth of different ethnic and racial subcultures represents a potential
opportunity for marketers because of cultural-specific tastes and desires.
e. Businesses recognize that, to succeed, their marketing strategies have to take into
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account the values, needs, interests, shopping patterns, and buying habits of the
various subcultures.
H. African American Subculture
1. In the United States, the African American subculture represents 13.2 percent of the U.S.
population.
2. African American consumers spend much of their money on depreciable products such as
phone services, children’s clothing, and shoes.
3. Many companies are increasing their focus on the African American community.
I. Hispanic Subculture
1. Hispanics represent 17.1 percent of the U.S. population.
2. Hispanics represent a large and powerful subculture, and are an attractive consumer group
for marketers.
3. When considering the buying behavior of Hispanics, marketers must keep in mind that this
subculture is really composed of many diverse cultures from a huge geographic region that
encompasses nearly two dozen nationalities, including Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican,
Caribbean, Spanish, and Dominican.
a. Each has its own history and unique culture that affect consumer preferences and
buying behavior.
4. Marketers need to capitalize on subtle but important differences so that they can attract a
target market and retain them as loyal customers.
J. Asian American Subculture
1. The term Asian American includes Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese, Asian Indians, Koreans, and
Vietnamese, encompassing people from more than 15 ethnic groups.
a. This group represents 5.3 percent of the U.S. population.
b. The individual language, religion, and value system of each group influences its
members’ purchasing decisions.
c. Some traits of this subculture, however, carry across ethnic divisions, including an
emphasis on hard work, strong family ties, and high value placed on education.
d. Their higher household income makes them a lucrative segment to marketers.
However, Asian Americans seem to lack the recognition in marketing that other
subcultures have gained.
VI. Consumer Misbehavior
A. Approaching the topic of inappropriate consumer behavior requires some caution because of
varying attitudes and cultural definitions of what comprises misbehavior.
1. Consumer misbehavior is defined as behavior that violates generally accepted norms of a
particular society.
2. Shoplifting is one of the most obvious misconduct areas, with organized retail crime (where
people are paid to shoplift goods from retail stores) on the rise.
3. Consumer fraud includes purposeful actions to take advantage of and/or damage others.
a. Fraudulently obtaining credit cards, checks, bank accounts, or false insurance claims
fall into this category.
4. Piracy is copying computer software, video games, movies, or music.