Types of Consumer Buying Behavior

The analysis of consumer behavior assists the marketing fraternity to establish what the needs and want of the costumers are and how they like to satisfy these needs. This is done in order to allow them to implement a marketing strategy that will result in a better outcome for the marketing plan when implemented.

Consumer buying behavior can broadly be described as the process that individuals follow to search for, select, purchase, use, and dispose of goods and services, in the course of satisfying their needs and desires. During these processes consumers makes different decisions. These consumer decisions are the method by which consumers identify their specific needs, collect relevant information, evaluate available alternatives, and finally make a purchase decision based on the outcome of the process. These actions are determined by psychological and economical factors, and are influenced by environmental factors such as cultural, group, and social values.

The buying behavior of consumers consists of the combination of processes, actions and decisions of all the people involved in the acquiring and using of particular products.

Classification

The decisions made by consumers can be categorized into four broad classification groups. These are routine response behavior, limited decision making, extensive decision making and impulse buying.

Routine Response Behavior

The routine response behavior is normally used by consumers when purchasing or acquiring items that are frequently purchased, low cost items or items that poses a relatively low risk to the consumer if a wrong decision is made. The ideal for any marketer is to move the offered product to this category. Marketers often do this by building a strong brand loyalty. When a product reaches this level of brand loyalty in the eyes of the customers the product will be bought without much comparison with competitive products.

Limited Decision Making

The limited decision making process is normally employed by consumers for products that that are only acquired occasionally or in cases where the customer needs to obtain information about a brand that is unfamiliar to him or her when making a choice about products or services about a familiar product or service category.

It is the norm that consumers utilizing this type of decision making will require a reasonable amount of time and effort to acquire relevant information and deliberate.

Extensive Decision Making

The extensive decision making process is used by consumers when they wish to acquire an expensive, unknown, high risk or occasionally purchased product or service. In this case the buyer has a multitude of criteria that may have to be evaluated. This normally takes quite a bit of time obtaining reliable information before comparing the available alternatives. These alternatives are then reduces to make it possible for the consumer to make a purchase decision. Psychologists have identified that people have a specific number of slots in their head which they use to classify options, this number as vary between four and seven. In the purchase decision making process some of these slots are inevitably already pre-assigned and filled, based on previous experiences, values, customs and beliefs.

Most consumer decisions that falls in the extensive decision making category are about getting the possible options reduced from hundreds of thousands to a number that is equivalent to the number of finite slots in their heads. The consumer is required to follow this route in order to get to a point where a purchase decision can be made.

Impulse Buying Decision

Impulse buying can be explained as a spur of the moment, unplanned decision to buy, normally made immediately before a purchase. Research findings suggest that emotions and feelings play a decisive role in purchasing, triggered by seeing the product or upon exposure to a promotional message that is properly designed to achieve the impulse buy to take place.

Impulse buying often occurs when the buyer gets caught up in the hype of a situation and buys the item or items without sufficient deliberation. Impulse items range from insignificant objects such as a chocolate bar, a piece of clothing or magazines to substantial or expensive items such as jewelry, a vehicle or an expensive painting.

Marketing techniques that is used to capitalize on shoppers' impulsiveness include items that are on sale. Shops that advertise "clearance sale" or "all items reduces" or the makes use of in shop announcements that something is reduced in price for the next 5 minutes are also trying to capitalize on the impulse buying decision. Another way that is regularly utilized by supermarkets to entice buyers to make an impulse buying decision is the placement of items next to the checkout counters.

Conclusion

It should be noted that the purchase of any particular product or service is not always based on the same decision making behavior by the consumer. Sometimes the consumer follows an extensive decision making process, especially if it is the first time the particular product is purchased. Should a similar product be acquired again, a limited decision making process may be followed.

On the other hand if a routinely bought brand does not satisfy the need of the consumer any more, the consumer may utilize the extensive or limited decision making process to establish whether a new brand may be more satisfying before switching.

© Carl Marx