Category : Banking
Consumer
A consumer is an individual, who buys products or services for personal use and not for manufacture or resale. A consumer may be a person or group of people such as a household who are the final users of products or services.
Consumers are mainly classified into two groups
Individual consumer buys the products and services for his own and his family or friends whereas commercial consumer buys products or services for manufacturing or reselling.
Consumer Behaviour
Consumer behaviour is a complex, dynamic, multidimensional process and all marketing decisions are based on the assumption about consumer behaviour. Consumer behaviour is the study of individuals, groups or organisation and the process they use to select, secure and dispose of products, services, experiences as well as ideas to satisfy needs and we find the overall impact of these processes on the consumer as well as on society.
The factors influencing consumer behaviour are as follows
Some Terms Related to Consumer Behaviour
When consumers dislike a product and may even pay to avoid it, it is called negative demand.
A situation in which consumer purchases are unplanned, is called impulse buying.
It means buyer s hesitation in buying the product. Buyer resistance can be overcome by cordial relation between buyer and seller, good negation, persuasive communication and good after sales service.
It means a group of satisfied customers.
It means a group of people likely to buy the identified product.
Generally, a buyer passes through five distinct stages, while taking a decision for purchasing a particular commodity.
A consumer determines an order of preference for satisfying his needs. Determination of such order of preference is the first stage of buying process. A marketer tries to convey the uses of his products to the consumers through his advertisement programmes.
Determination of preference order sets the needs of a consumer in an order and the consumer starts to fulfil his needs one by one. He determined the need to be satisfied first of all. Then he tries to identify different alternatives to study his need.
The purpose of this Step is to evaluate the merits and demerits of all the available alternatives. It helps the consumer in choosing the best possible alternative. After selecting the best alternative, the consumer proceeds to buy it.
After the evaluation of all the alternatives, the consumers now decide on what they will purchase and where? These include the cost of product compared to how much money the consumer can afford to spend, the opinions of family or friends and the sales and services of the marketer.
At this stage, the attempts are made to understand the extent to which the buyers feel themselves satisfied with their purchases. Such information is very useful for the marketer.
Buying Motives
There are different kinds of customers. So, their wants and needs are also different. They buy products or services to satisfy their needs. The causes and factors which stimulate consumer to buy certain goods or services, are called buying motives.
Buying motives are basically of two types
These refer to those influences or factors which motivate a buyer to choose a particular product. They include the physical or psychological attraction of product, i.e., design, shape, size, colour, package, etc.
Product buying motives can be divided into two types
(i) Emotional Product Buying Motives When a buyer decides to purchase a product without thinking logically and carefully, this is called emotional product buying motives.
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(ii) Rational Product Buying Motives When a buyer decides to purchase a product after thinking logically and carefully, this is called rational product buying motives.
These include
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These refer to those considerations or reasons which motivate a buyer to purchase the product from a particular shop.
Patronage buying motives can also be divided into two types
(i) Emotional Patronage Buying Motives
(ii) Rational Patronage Buying Motives
The importance of the study of consumer behaviour may be explained as under
Consumer behaviour discovers the habits, tastes and preferences of consumers and such discovery enables an enterprise to plan and develop its products according to these specifications. It is necessary for an enterprise to be in continuous touch with the changes in consumer behaviour so that necessary changes in products may be made.
A businessman must study the behaviour of his consumers very well before fixing the price of his product because the consumer behaviour affects price policies of the enterprise to a great extent.
It is necessary for the manufactures to assure regular and continuous supply of products in the market. Therefore, all the efforts should be made to distribute the products through channels of distribution most suited to the consumers so that availability of these products at right time and right place may be assured.
The study of consumer behaviour helps the enterprise in knowing the buying motives of consumers. The decisions of the form, colour, packaging and labelling, etc. of the products are directly affected by the motives for which the consumer buy the products.
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