Consumer behaviour

The existence of any business is due to unfulfilled needs and wants of the consumer. To fulfill needs of consumer, products/services are introduced in the market by business organization. So, a thorough knowledge of consumers and understanding of their behavior is must for a meaningful existence of any organization.

Consumer behavior can be defined as “the decision process and physical activity engaged in when evaluating, acquiring, using or disposing of goods and services.”¹An understanding of consumer behavior is of critical importance to all person engaged in any form of marketing activity. This understanding enables the marketers to find behavior of consumers, to influence their behaviors and to manipulate the influencing variables to gain advantage.

The growth in the size of companies and markets has given birth to the marketing research and consumer behavior that has become one of the focal points of marketing. This is being researched very widely. The products are designed to fit into consumers' perception. The products are distributed as per the consumers' convenience and advertised to communicate consumers and ultimately influence their behavior in favor of its offers. Since the stakes in the business are very high, competition is too stiff and failure of the business is too risky. Therefore, it is desirable to assess the consumers’ behavior and their preferences in order to remain competitive in the market.

The consumer’s buying patterns, according to researchers, is an area for in-depth study for suggesting different useful marketing strategies. In the present era, the information technology is growing at very fast rate. This has created tremendous competition in the market. The enhanced importance of consumers' behavior, in the recent development of information system, has provoked an interest in examining the buying/subscribing pattern of two-wheelers by consumers.

Consumer Behavior in the Present Perspective

The knowledge of consumer behavior is a fairly important aspect, both from the viewpoint of the academician’s theoretical interest and the practical applicability that it has for the marketing practitioners. In the modern concept of marketing, the only rationale for the firm's existence is believed to be the consumer's satisfaction that it provides. The importance of consumer behavior was well recognized by the social and management scientist. The father of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi recognized the importance of the customers. He said, “A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider on our business. He is a part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.”² Therefore, it is of vital importance that the knowledge of "what makes the consumer to think" and what consequently would contribute to his satisfaction, is at the disposal of marketer.

The fast changing business environment has provided many inputs (in terms of both the product package and emotional images built into them) that influences buyers' behavior and keeps consumer preferences in a constant state of flux. The information revolution and intensifying competition places a large amount of solicited information at the consumer's disposal before buying a product. The informational inputs, advocating the merits of each branded goods influence the buyers decision to a great extent. There are various other factors that influence the consumer behavior may also be the topics of interest from the marketer point of view.

Model of Consumer Behaviour

In earlier times, marketers could understand consumers well through the daily experience of selling to them. But as firms and marketers have grown in size, many marketing decision makers lost direct contact with their customers and now have turned to consumer research.

The market stimuli consists of the four Ps, product, price, place and promotion . Other stimuli include major forces and events in the buyers environment such as economic, technological, political and cultural. All these stimuli enter the buyer's black box, where they are turned into a set of observable buyer responses such as product choice, brand choice, dealer choice, purchase timing and purchase amount.

Factors Influencing Consumer Behaviour

Consumer behavior is affected by a host of variables, ranging from personal motivation, needs, attributes and values, personality characteristics, socio-economics and cultural background, age, sex, professional status to social influences of various kind exerted by family, friends, colleagues and society as a whole. The combination of these various factors produced a different impact on each one of us as manifested our different behavior as consumer.

“The family of procreation”- The buyer's “spouse and children” have a more direct influence on every day buying behavior. This family is the most important consumer buying organization in the society, and it has been researched extensively. Marketers are interested in the roles and relatives influence of the spouse, and children on the purchase of large of variety of products and services.

A person's self-concept also influences the buying decision. In order to understand consumer behavior, the marketers must first understand the relationship between consumer self-concept and possessions. Then, the buying decision can be made oriented towards the particular product.

Psychological Factors: The buying decision and behavior of consumer for a particular product is also influenced by four major psychological factors. These are motivation, perception, learning and beliefs and attitudes. The same are explained in the following headings:

(a) Motivation: “The motivation is an inner state that mobilizes bodily energy and directs it in selective fashion towards goals usually located in the external environment.”⁴ A person has many needs at a given time. Some are "biological" arising from states of tension such as hunger, thirst or discomfort. Others are “psychological” arising from the need for recognition, esteem or belonging. Marketers do their best to motivate the buyers and attract them for a particular product. Thus, the motivation helps in influencing the buying decision of buyer to a great extent.

(b) Perception: It is the process by which people select, organize and interpret information to form a meaningful picture of the world. Motivation makes the persons ready to buy the item, and perception makes the person mentally ready for selecting a particular brand of item. Marketing managers make efforts, so that the buyers get confirmed to buy that item or services.

(c) Learning: Learning describes changes in individual's behavior arising from experience. Learning occurs through the interplay of drives, stimuli, cues, responses, and reinforcement. The practical significance of learning theory for marketers is that they can build up demand for a product by associating it with strong drives using motivating cues and providing positive reinforcement.

(d) Beliefs and Attitudes: Through doing and learning, people acquire their beliefs and attitudes. These in turn, influence the buying behavior of consumers. A “belief” is a descriptive thought that a person has about something. An “attitude” describes a person's relatively consistent evaluations, feelings, and tendencies towards an idea or object.

The marketers are interested in the beliefs that people formulate about specific products and services, because these beliefs make up product and brand images that affect buying behavior.

In the present context, the consumers get many information at hand due to the information revolution. Media (electronic and print), TV, Radio and satellite communication have made easy to consumers to choose the best products available in the market for their use. The marketers have to play a key role in attracting the potential buyers in favor of their products. The buying decision varies as per the information available with the consumer before buying a particular product. Information available through Internet with the help of cable TV has created a new dimension in making decision before the buying any product. Thus, the decision of buyers depends a lot on the information available with the buyers.

Making a decision to buy any item is a rationale and conscious process in which the consumer evaluates each of the available alternatives to select the best among them. Each decision, one makes, involves an elaborate mental exercise and a degree of active reasoning, though on the surface, it may not always seems to be so.

Stages in the Buyers’ Decision Process

In making a purchase decision, a consumer normally goes through the following five stages:

in the memory.

1. 
   Purchase Decision: After calculating everything, buyer takes decision to buy that item. At the last stage also, the buyer's decision can be influenced by giving some special price discount and attract the buyer towards the product. In this, marketer plays a very crucial role.
   

The self explanatory block diagram about the aforesaid discussion follows: ⁵

Thus, one can now appreciate the many individual characteristics and factors affecting on consumer behavior. The information technology which has attained new dimensions in the recent past has sufficiently influenced the consumer's behavior especially in the field of brand selection and buying patterns. The markets some times face difficulties for motivating and influencing the buyer's decision in favor of a particular product.

The consumer's choice results from the complex interplay of culture, social, personal and psychological factors. Although, many of these factors cannot be influenced by the marketer, they can be useful in identifying interested buyers and in shaping products and appeals to better serve their needs.
Organizational buying Vs. Consumer buying
Marketing theory traditionally splits analysis of buyer or customer behavior into two broad groups for analysis –Consumer Buyers and Organizational Buyers.

Consumer buyers are those who purchase items for their personal consumption.

Organizational buyers are those who purchase items on behalf of their business or organization.

In contrast to consumers, organizational buyers represent those “buying goods and services on behalf of an organization for the purpose of the furtherance of organizational objectives” (Lancaster, 1999). Before highlighting some of the differences between the two, however, it is important to caution against over stressing the differences. For instance, you may come across some authors who argue that buying goods on behalf of one’s employers makes buyers more caution and rational than when purchasing consumer goods privately. Come of the features of organizational buying which is different from the consumer buying can be summarized as :

Derived Demand: Organizational buyers often continually adjust their buying decisions on the basis of projected sales figures, buying more units when forecast sales are higher. The result can be a sort of “pendulum effect”, with a knock-on effect throughout the buying chain as each chain member adjusts it’s buying patterns accordingly.

transaction.

Determining the Price of the Product: the decision related to price is a critical factor for the management. To decide price, the manufacturer has to choose that price level which maximises sales revenue. In a free market economy where there is a tough competition in the market, manufacturer try to gain competitive edge through setting different price policy. Actually only thorough knowledge of consumer behaviour in actual buying situation that marketer can hope to find answer to these issues.

Marketing Research is a vehicle through we can obtain information about present and potential customer’s behavior, their reaction and prospective about marketing. Learning more about the consumer and marketing is the heart of marketing research. The objective of this study is to know about the consumer’s perception & preference towards Beer of MML.

This research training helped me in getting more practical and enhanced my awareness level of consumer oriented towards buying a product of liquor of “Mohan Meakin Ltd.”.