Mgt170 (5) Consumer Markets and Consumer Buyers Decision (1).docx

CHPTER 5: CONSUMER MARKETS &
CONSUMER BUYERS DECISION
Consumer buyer behavior
The buying behavior of final consumers— individuals
and households that buy goods and services for
personal consumption.
Consumer market
All the individuals and households that buy or acquire
goods and services for personal consumption.
MODEL OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
The buying decision is the focal point of the marketer’s
effort.
Learning about the whys of consumer buying behavior is
not so easy—the answers are often locked deep within
the consumer’s mind.
The central question for marketers is How do consumers
respond to various marketing efforts the company might
use? The starting point is the stimulus-response model
of buyer behavior.
This figure shows that marketing and other stimuli enter
the consumer’s “black box” and produce certain
responses. Marketers must figure out what is in the
buyer’s black box.
Marketers want to understand how the stimuli are
changed into responses inside the consumer’s black box,
which has two parts. First, the buyer’s characteristics
influence how he or she perceives and reacts to the
stimuli. Second, the buyer’s decision process itself
affects his or her behavior. We look first at buyer
characteristics as they affect buyer behavior and then
discuss the buyer decision process.
CHARACTERISTICS AFFECTING CONSUMER
BEHAVIOR
Consumer purchases are influenced strongly by cultural,
social, personal, and psychological characteristics.
CULTURAL
Culture
The set of basic values, perceptions, wants, and
behaviors learned by a member of society from family
and other important institutions.
Culture is the most basic cause of a person’s wants and
behavior. Growing up in a society, a child learns basic
values, perceptions, wants, and behaviors from his or
her family and other important institutions.
Marketers are always trying to spot cultural shifts so as
to discover new products that might be wanted.
Subculture
A group of people with shared value systems based on
common life experiences and situations.
Subcultures include nationalities, religions, racial
groups, and geographic regions. Many subcultures make
up important market segments, and marketers often
design products and marketing programs tailored to
their needs.
Social Class
Relatively permanent and ordered divisions in a society
whose members share similar values, interests, and
behaviors.
Social class is not determined by a single factor, such as
income, but is measured as a combination of
occupation, income, education, wealth, and other
variables.
Marketers are interested in social class because people
within a given social class tend to exhibit similar buying
behavior.
SOCIAL
Group
Two or more people who interact to accomplish
individual or mutual goals.