Consumer and Business

Buyer Behavior

Chapter 5
Road Map: Previewing the Concepts

• Understand the consumer market and the major

factors that influence consumer buyer behavior.
• Identify and discuss the stages in the buyer
decision process.
• Describe the adoption and diffusion process for
new products.

5-2
Road Map: Previewing the Concepts

• Define the business market and identify the

major factors that influence business buyer
behavior.
• List and define the steps in the business buying
decision process.

5-3
 Consumer Buying Behavior
• Refers to the buying behavior of people
who buy goods and services for personal
use.
• These people make up the consumer
market.
• The central question for marketers is:
 “How do consumers respond to various
marketing efforts the company might use?”

5-4
 Culture
• Culture is the Most Basic Cause of a
Person's Wants and Behavior.

• Culture is learned from family, church,

school, peers, colleagues.
• Culture includes basic values, perceptions,
wants, and behaviors.

5-5
 Culture
• Subculture
 Groups of people with shared value systems based
on common life experiences.
• Major Groups
 Hispanic Consumers
 African-American Consumers
 Asian-American Consumers
 Mature Consumers

5-6
 Culture
Social Class
• Society’s relatively permanent and
ordered divisions whose members share
similar values, interests, and behaviors.
• Measured by a combination of:
occupation, income, education, wealth,
and other variables.

5-7
 Social Factors
• Groups:
 Membership, Reference (Opinion Leaders)
Aspirational
• Family:
 Most important consumer buying organization
• Roles & Status:
 Role = Expected activities
 Status = Esteem given to role by society

5-8
 Personal Factors
• Age and Life-Cycle Stage

• Occupation

• Economic Situation

5-9
 Personal Factors
• Lifestyle:
 Pattern of living as expressed in
psychographics
Activities
Interests
Opinions

5 - 10
 Personality & Self-Concept
• Personality refers to the unique
psychological characteristics that lead to
relatively consistent and lasting responses
to one’s own environment.
• Generally defined in terms of traits.
• Self-concept suggests that people’s
possessions contribute to and reflect their
identities.

5 - 11
 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
• Self-Actualization
• Esteem needs
• Social needs
• Safety needs
• Physiological needs

5 - 12
 Perception
 Information Inputs
 Interpretation
 Selective Exposure
 Selective Distortion
 Selective Retention

5 - 13
 Learning
• A relatively permanent change in behavior
due to experience.
• Interplay of drives, stimuli, cues,
responses, and reinforcement.
• Strongly influenced by the consequences
of an individual’s behavior
 Behaviors with satisfying results tend to be
repeated.
 Behaviors with unsatisfying results tend not to
be repeated.
5 - 14
 Beliefs & Attitudes
• A belief is a descriptive thought that a
person holds about something.

• An attitude is a person’s consistently

favorable or unfavorable evaluations,
feelings, and tendencies toward an
object or idea.

5 - 15
 Buying Decision Process

• Need recognition
• Information search
• Evaluation of alternatives
• Purchase decision
• Postpurchase behavior

5 - 16
 Sources of Information
• Personal
• Commercial
• Public
• Experiential

5 - 17
 Buying Decision Process

• Factors that influence purchase

decision:
 Attitudes of others
 Unexpected situational factors

5 - 18
 Buying Decision Process
• Consumer satisfaction is a function of
consumer expectations and perceived
product performance.
• Performance < Expectations ----- Disappointment

• Performance = Expectations ----- Satisfaction

• Performance > Expectations ----- Delight

5 - 19
 Buying Decision Process

• Cognitive dissonance: a buyer’s

doubts shortly after a purchase about
whether it was the right decision.

5 - 20
 Stages in the Adoption Process
1. Awareness: Consumer becomes aware of the
new product, but lacks information about it.
2. Interest: Consumer seeks information about
new product.
3. Evaluation: Consumer considers whether
trying the new product makes sense.
4. Trial: Consumer tries new product on a small
scale to improve his or her estimate of its
value.
5. Adoption: Consumer decides to make full
and regular use of the new product.

5 - 21
 Product Adopter Categories

• Innovators
• Early adopters
• Early majority
• Late majority
• Laggards

5 - 22
Influence of Product Characteristics on
Rate of Adoption
• Relative Advantage:
Advantage Is the innovation
superior to existing products?
• Compatibility:
Compatibility Does the innovation fit the
values and experience of the target market?
• Complexity:
Complexity Is the innovation difficult to
understand or use?
• Divisibility:
Divisibility Can the innovation be used on a
limited basis?
• Communicability:
Communicability Can results be easily
observed or described to others?
5 - 23
Business Markets & Business Buyer
Behavior
• The business market is vast and involves
far more dollars and items than do
consumer markets.
• Business buyer behavior refers to the
buying behavior of the organizations that
buy goods and services for use in the
production of other products and services
that are sold, rented, or supplied to others.

5 - 24
 Business Markets
• Market Structure and • Nature of the
Demand: Buying Unit:
 Contains far fewer but  Business purchases
larger buyers. involve more
 Customers are more decision
geographically participants.
concentrated.
 Business demand is  Business buying
derived from consumer involves a more
demand. professional
purchasing effort.
5 - 25
 Types of Decisions and the Decision
Process

• Business buyers usually face more complex

buying decisions.
• Business buying process tends to be more
formalized.
• Buyers and sellers are much more dependent
on each other.

5 - 26
 Types of Buying Situations

• Straight rebuy
• Modified rebuy
• New Task

5 - 27
 Participants in the Business Buying
Process
• Decision-making unit of a • Buying Center
buying organization is Members:
called its buying center.  Users
• Not a fixed and formally  Deciders
identified unit.  Influencers
• Membership will vary for  Buyers
different products and  Gatekeepers
buying situations.

5 - 28
 Influences on Business Buyer
Behavior
• Environmental
• Organizational
• Interpersonal
• Individual

5 - 29
 The Business Buying Process

1. Problem 5. Proposal
recognition solicitation
2. General need 6. Supplier selection
description 7. Order-routine
3. Product specification
specification 8. Performance
review
4. Supplier search

5 - 30
 e-Procurement
• Advantages for buyers:
 Access to new suppliers
 Lowers purchasing costs
 Hastens order processing and delivery
• Advantages for vendors:
 Share information with customers
 Sell products and services
 Provide customer support services
 Maintain ongoing customer relationships

5 - 31
 Rest Stop: Reviewing the Concepts
1. Describe the consumer market and the
major factors that influence consumer
buyer behavior.
2. Identify and discuss the stages in the
buyer decision process.
3. Describe the adoption and diffusion
process for new products.

5 - 32
 Rest Stop: Reviewing the Concepts
4. Define the business market and identify
the major factors that influence business
buyer behavior.
5. List and define the steps in the business
buying decision process.

5 - 33