Forces that Drive the Change in Consumer Behaviour

Consumer behavior is an interdisciplinary science and represents the behavioral context in which consumers operate while searching for, purchasing, using, evaluating, and disposing of products & services.

The actions a person takes in purchasing and using products and services, including the mental and social processes that precede & follow these actions eg: Soap –  Premium Soaps, Antiseptic Soaps, Brands – Lux, Rexona, Where to buy – chemist, general store, Frequency of purchase – once a week, month, Frequency of Use – daily [once], twice a day. 

Consumer behavior study looks into the way individuals decide, how individuals make decisions to spend their available scare resources like money, time, and energy on their chosen item for consumption.

There are different reasons why one must study Consumer Behaviour such as to understand the psychology of how consumers think, feel, reason, and select between different alternatives, how the consumer is influenced by his or her environment, the behavior of consumers while shopping or making other marketing decisions, how marketers can adapt and improve their marketing campaigns and marketing strategies to more effectively reach the consumer. 

Consumer Research is an Integral Part of CB as it envelopes every aspect of consumer behavior, evaluation by the consumer, covering pre-purchase to product expiry stage behavior in a way that consumer behavior understanding may help you to develop your product, service offering, promotional schemes and venturing into the re-purchase market.  

There are different natures of Consumers

• Personal Consumers
• Organizational Consumers
• Institutional Consumers
• Government Bodies

Consumers in each of these categories purchase with different objectives, utility, and mindset, and have different influences in decision making

There are different classifications of Consumers based on the fact that a buyer is not always the end-user or the only user of a product purchased, marketers must understand three classifications of consumers namely (User, Buyer, and Influencer).

Marketers must decide to whom to direct their promotional efforts – the user, buyer, or the influencer, ideally consumers with a personal attachment to a product your consumer has. 

Importance of Consumer Behaviour 

The importance of Consumer Behaviour is many such as shorter product life cycles, environmental concerns, increased interest in consumer protection, public policy concerns, growth of service marketing, growth of non-profit Marketing, International Marketing, and advancement of computer and statistical techniques.  

Forces that Drive the Change in Consumer Behaviour

Various factors responsible for the changes in consumer behavior are:

1. Environmental changes
2. Social and cultural factors
3. Better variety of products
4. Media

Application of Consumer Buyer Behaviour to Strategic Marketing

The onset of industrialization led to the growth of advertising. The competition gave birth to a consumer-oriented marketing approach. It was recognized that consumers were highly complex individuals, subject to a variety of psychological and social needs, and the priorities of different consumer segments differed dramatically. Their consumption behavior needed to be understood in depth.

Market segmentation and the marketing concept laid the groundwork for the application of consumer behavior principles to areas such as marketing strategy, development of public policy, social marketing strategy, and creation of aware consumers.