Buying Readiness Stages of Consumer

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					                                     CHAPTER 7

 Develop an understanding of a basic consumer behavior model.
 Develop an understanding of the four major factors/ characteristics affecting consumer
 Explain the basic types of buying decision behavior.
 Discuss the relevance of the buyer decision process for a marketing manager.

I. Importance of understanding consumer behavior for a marketer.
Where does consumer behavior fit into the Marketing Process?
What happens inside of the Buyer’s Black box (Figure 7.1)?

II. Factors influencing consumer behavior or forces acting on CB.
Figure 7.2 — a complex interplay of cultural, social, personal and psychological factors affecting
a consumer's choice.

A. Cultural forces exert the broadest and deepest influence on CB.
 Culture— the most basic cause of a person's wants and needs.
   International marketers must understand the respective culture in each of his/her markets.
   Cultural shifts are important to detect.
 Subculture— group of people with shared value systems based on common life experiences
   and situations.
   Examples: Hispanic, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Mature.
 Social Class (Figure 7.3) — relatively permanent and ordered division in a society whose
   members share similar values, interests, and/or behaviors.

Social factors
 Reference group (especially who is the Leader) — influence tends to be strongest when the
   product is visible.
 Family— it is the most important buying organization in society.
 Roles— activities a person is expect to perform according to the people around them.
 Status— general esteem given to the role by society.

C. Personal factors— a buyer's decisions are influenced by personal characteristics.
 Age and life cycle
 Occupation
 Economic situation
 Lifestyle: a person's pattern of living as expressed in Psychographics (activities, interests, and
    opinions). This profiles a person's whole pattern of acting and interacting.
 Personality: unique psychological characteristics that lead to relatively consistent and lasting
    responses to one's own environment, e.g., self-confidence, sociability, adaptability, etc.

B. Psychological factors
 Motivation: a need becomes a motive when it is aroused to a sufficient level of intensity.
   (Maslow and Freud)
 Perception: process by which people select, organize, and interpret information to form a
   meaningful picture of the world.
 Learning: changes in an individual's behavior arising from experience.
 Belief: a descriptive thought that a person holds about something.
 Attitude: consistently favorable or unfavorable evaluations, feelings, and tendencies toward
   an object. Attitudes are difficult to change.

III. Types of Buying Decision Behavior (Figure 7.5)
 High involvement— when product is expensive, risky, purchased infrequently, and highly
      self-expressive. Consumer has much to learn about product and category.
 Low involvement— low cost and frequently purchased products.
 Level of involvement is influenced by the characteristics of the product, the situation, the
      communication, and the consumer's personality.
 What are possible marketer responses to high and low involvement situations?

IV. Buyer Decision Process (Figure 7.6) consists of five basic stages. Sometimes consumers do
not pass through all stages on every purchase. Why?
       #1. Need recognition — #2. Information search — #3. Evaluation of alternatives —
       #4. Purchase decision — #5. Postpurchase behavior

 Discrepancy between "desired state" and actual state.
      Internal stimuli
      External stimuli
One goal of advertising is to cause consumers to recognize a "problem."

As the level of involvement of the consumer increases, he/she processes information in more
 The level of information search could be:
        Heighten attention.
        Active information search.
 What is the source of the information?
        Personal sources.
        Commercial sources.
        Experiential sources.

Consumer compares the options identified as potentially capable of solving the problem that
initiated the decision process. As he/she compares options, the consumer forms beliefs,
attitudes, and intentions about the alternatives under consideration.

Alternative evaluation can be analyzed from the viewpoint of three perspectives on CB.
    1. Decision-making perspective— may follow either high-involvement or low-involvement
    2. Experiential perspective— the evaluation process is affect-driven. Marketer's focus is on
       "affect creation" as what feelings and emotions are elicited by an advertisement or the
    3. Behavioral influence perspective— consumers are conceptualized as never consciously
       comparing alternatives.

How people go about making choices is strongly influenced by the type of decision process in
which they are engaged. The choice process differs when consumers use a high-involvement
approach as opposed to a low-involvement approach.
 High-involvement typically a compensatory model. "Add up" values of the positive
   attributes and select the highest ranked option.
 Low-involvement typically a noncompensatory model— consumer is viewed as comparing
   alternatives on attributes one at a time. This is a shortcut to reach satisfactory decision
   rather than an optimal.
 Experiential perspective— make a choice after considering their feelings about alternatives.
   Little emphasis on the development of beliefs about attributes. In this decision process
   brand awareness is important. Also consider impulse purchases and how the consumer's
   mood influences choice.
 Behavioral influence perspective— consumers do not make any type of conscious, mental

Will the consumer be satisfied or dissatisfied?
        Answer is in the relationship between— expectations and perceived performance.
        Cognitive dissonance?
High levels of postpurchase satisfaction is a major goal of most companies.

Managerial implications of the five steps?

V. Stages in the adoption process
 Awareness— aware but lacks information.
 Interest— seeks information about the new product.
 Evaluation— considers whether trying new product makes sense.
 Trial— tries new product on a small scale.
 Adoption— bingo!!

Adopter categories (Figure 7.7) — consumers differ greatly in their readiness to try new


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