Buyer behavior in consumer and business markets

Question 1

B2C: Name and briefly explain the main stages in the buyer decision process (5-steps)

Answer 1

1. Need recognition: the buyer recognizes a problem or need. Can be triggered by internal and external stimuli.
2. Information search: The consumer may store a need in their memory or undertake an information search related to the need.
3. Evaluation of alternatives: The stage of the buyer decision process in which the consumer uses information to evaluate alternative brands in the choice set.
4. Purchase decision: Generally a consumer decides to buy the most preferred object or brand.
5. Post-purchase decision: The stage of the buyer decision process in which consumers take further action after purchase, based on their satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

Question 2

Name and explain the four major sets of factors influencing consumer behaviour

Answer 2

1. Cultural factors
2. 1 Culture - traditions, taboos, values, and basic attitudes of the whole society within which an individual lives.
3. 2 Subculture - groups of people with shared value systems based on common life experiences and situations.
4. 3 Social grade/class - relatively permanent and ordered divisions in a society whose members share similar values, interests and behaviors
5. Social factors: reference groups, family, social roles and status
6. 1 Reference group
7. 2 Family
8. 3 Social roles and status
9. 4 Membership groups vs. Aspirational groups vs. Avoidance groups
10. Personal factors
11. 1 Age and life-cycle stage
12. 2 Occupation
13. 3 Economic situation
14. 4 Lifestyle - activities, interests, opinions.
15. 5 Personality and self-concept
16. Psychological factors
17. 1 Motivation and motives - a need that is sufficiently pressing to direct the person to seek to certify it.

Question 3

Explain Membership groups vs. Aspirational groups vs. Avoidance groups

Answer 3

1. Membership reference group: People the consumer actually knows and can relate to. For this, advertisers use ordinary people the customer feels connected to.
2. Aspirational reference group: People/social circles the consumer doesn’t know but admires eg. celebrities, first-class travel. For this advertisers use celebrities or other powerful figures.
3. Avoidance reference group: This is the group that consumers want to purposely distance themselves from (dissociative groups). Eg. coach vs. first class, ‘nerds’, unattractive people. The customers desire to distance themselves from these groups can be as strong as the desire to please a group they aspire to. Advertisers might show undesirable people using the competitor’s product in an ad, and desirable people using their own product.

Question 4

Participants in the buying process

Answer 4

1. Initiator
2. Influencer
3. Decider
4. Buyer
5. User