Consumer Behavior Assignment Help

If we were to understand where did it all started, we could discover that consumer behaviour evolved just after the World War II. This led to a break in the monopoly played by the seller at that time and the rise of the buyers market. This was the event which took the attention off of the product to the consumer. And the pattern exhibited by the purchase behaviour led to the rise of consumer behaviour. 

Due importance is given to the consumerism, and there is standard legislation made just for the consumers. After running the background check for consumer behaviour, we will now take a look at what consumer behaviour is.  Consumer behaviour is a conclusion or resolution reached after consideration of consumption. 

In layman terms the resources that lie with the consumer could be capital, time and the efforts, while the consumption aspects could be what to buy when to buy, how do they buy etc.

Marketers are responsible for facilitating this experience a hurdle in the generalisation of product-related aspects due to the differential demands and preferences of the consumer. This is other words mean different consumer behaviour. To solve the problem mentioned above, the marketeer decided to leverage the tools, data and other resources available to the organization and understand consumer behaviour. This no doubt is a modern concept and is practised to save on the expenses of the company. 

This is a smart way of doing business. This further helps in deciding the marketing mix of price, product, place, promotion and help in fostering a long-term relationship with the customers. This brings us to a stage to understand a thin difference between a customer and a consumer. The term customer is very particular to a shop, brand or a store. So he is involved in buying and repeated buying the company's product. This can be any individual who purchases ration from Walmart. 

A consumer, on the other hand, is one who is involved in series of events such as research, choose, use and dispose of the product. 

Now we can move ahead in understanding the need for studying consumer behaviour.

In the fast-paced growing organization with competitors selling the same product and arising of saturation in the market, there is an urgency to understand the consumer behaviour and accordingly shape the way of doing business. This could be a difference in defining good and better organization. After understanding the consumer behaviour, the next step involves planning around the findings to put to use for what forms to be the best practice in the business. 

To get into the details of consumer behaviour, there is consumer market, and then there is an organizational market. The buying behaviour of a consumer is different in both the markets. 

The unique points of differentiation being:

1. The hierarchy in the form of a structure and the demand
2. The profile of the buyer 
3. The process of decision making and the characteristic of buying

The hierarchy in the form of a structure and the demand

• First things first, the buyers in the organization market are more geographically concentrated than in the consumer market.
• The buyers in the organisation are sparse but in bulk as compared to the buyers at the individual level.
• There is a vertical and a horizontal hierarchy of organizational buyers. The vertical hierarchy caters to a handful of industries (one or two in number). The flat structure has a broad number of buyers.

The profile of the buyer 

• In general, the organizational buyers are more rational and exhibit professionalism in buying behaviour
• They show and are a part of the decision-making process
• The organisational buyers are a part of the decision-making process

The process of decision making and the characteristic of buying

• The method of decision making involves paperwork and formalisation in the process.
• The process of decision making is complicated with factors involving multiple factors affecting the buying behaviour.
• The organisational buyers are involved in negotiations.

Consumer behaviour and marketing strategies must complement each other for determining the organization success. In the fast pace organization, the organization must involve in continually delivering value to the customer. Let us define customer value at his point. Customer value is the difference between the benefits and the cumulative cost of acquiring the product. It is evident from the definition that the greater the customer value, the more loyal the customer would be to the product. 

This brings us to ask the follow-up question, which is how do we deliver superior customer value? The answer lies in the fact of optimising the marketing mix. 

Consumer behaviour and market segmentation follow a cause and effect relationship, where consumer behaviour is the cause and segmentation is the result of understanding the consumer behaviour. It is a smart practice to channelise the efforts in the direction of getting the return on investment on the efforts, capital etc. Note that the marketers are not the creators of the segment, in fact, it is another way around where they spot the segments in the marketplace. 

Consumer behaviour and positioning is a slightly tricky and complex task as it involves positioning the product in the minds of the customer in the target market by perceiving what seems to be unique and differentiated from the competitors offering. 

Consumer behaviour can help facilitate decision making by amending marketing strategies. By understanding, consumer behaviour marketers have an idea about predicting the response to a new product and new marketing strategy set for promotions. 

It now brings us to understand the process in the consumer decision-making process

It is the stimuli which urge and generated the need for the buyer to purchase the product. So it all starts with the need followed by the research on the information part, evaluation of all the alternatives. 

After this, there is a decision made by the consumer of whether it not he wants to buy the product and after purchase, there is a post-purchase behaviour.  

Opinion leadership is the process of informally spreading the influence of the product in consumer-related decisions. The person doing this is the opinion leader. The receiver of the conversation is the opinion seeker in this case.

Selective attention: a customer ideally wants to listen and see a lot of information. For instance, you would be interested in knowing just the price of the product. This may be because you already know about the knowledge of the product or you are not interested to know about the rest of the product specifications.

Selective distortion is a tendency of the person to relate it to the information he is aware of and accordingly describes the facts and the data.

Selective retention is the tendency to retain the favouring or relevant information and the things we would like to listen selectively.