1. BUYER BEHAVIOUR
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
AFTER STUDYING THIS CHAPTER YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO:
 Describe Consumer buying decision process
 Describe factors affecting consumer buying behaviour
 Describe the business buying behaviour and the influencing factors

2. INTRODUCTION
Why do we need to study about buying behaviour ?
- To find out how people make their buying decisions
- To identify the factors that influence those decisions.
In this chapter looks at 2 types of buyer behaviour :
Consumers and Business buyers

3. Consumer Buying Behaviour
Definition of consumers…
Consumers….
- Individuals who buys product and services for themselves or on behalf of their
households.
- The final users or end users of these products.
Consumer buying behaviour… -
- Describes the process of how consumers make purchase decisions and how they
use the purchased products.
Therefore you need understand :
 How the decision making process comes about?
 Why consumers make the purchases that they make?
 What are the factors influences them to purchase?

4. CONSUMER BUYING DECISION –MAKING PROCESS
Need
recognition
Information
search
Evaluation of
alternatives
Purchase
decision
Post-purchase
behaviour

5. Need recognition
 Buyer recognizing a problem or need.
Need is realised through :
- Internal Stimuli – aware of the need due to physical or psychologic
e.g hunger and thirst
- External stimuli – triggered by an advertisement on TV, brand name
 Marketers can create needs on part of the customer. As we all know, want exists
when you have an unfulfilled needs and you have identified those needs.
 Example : Children might want toys, adults might want a lower cholesterol Nasi
Lemak.
 By gathering information, marketers can identify stimuli that stimulate in the
product and try to develop marketing programmes that take into account these
stimuli.

6. Information search
• Customers search information about various alternatives available to satisfy their
wants.
• These can be obtain through various sources :
1. Personal sources: Family members, friends, neighbours
2. Commercial sources : advertising, dealers, salesperson, displays
3. Public sources – Mass media, customer – rating organization
4. Experiential sources – from own or others experiences of using the product

7. Evaluation of
alternatives
• At this point, customer is ready to make decision.
• Customer uses info about the product, evaluate and compares the
alternatives.
• Several steps involves in evaluating :
 Benefit of the product
 The importance of each benefit
 Brand beliefs
 Functions of the product
 Cost
 Satisfaction that can be derived from the product

8. Purchase decision
• Customer decide which product to buy or not buy at all.
• Customer will also decide on where, why, when and how to pay for the product
Post-purchase
behaviour
• Consumer assess on the product after the purchase to determine whether he / she is
satisfied with the product or not.

9. FACTORS AFFECTING CONSUMER
BUYING BEHAVIOUR
Consumer Buying Behaviour
Cultural factors Social factors Personal factors Psycholocal factors
Culture Reference group Age & life cycle Motivation
Subculture Family Occupation Perception
Social class Roles and status Economic situation
Learning
Lifestyle
Personality Attitudes
Self-Concept

10. Cultural factors
• Culture…
- Refers to a set of vale, ideas and attitudes and transmitted or passed down to the
next generation
- Determines what people should wear, eat …Example… its common to find
Malaysians to be eating in the open air restaurants in the middle of the night.
• Subculture…
- Include nationalities, geographic regions, racial groups
- Example the common colour that depict Chinese New Year for the chinese is red
and most decorations are all in red and therefore all product should be associated
with red colour.
• Social class
- Measured and related to occupation, income, education and wealth and share
common interests and behaviors.
- In US for example they are generally categorized into upper , middle and lower
class

11. Social factors
• Members of a society have an influence on consumer’s buying decisions.
• We need to address the influence of reference group, family, roles and status of a
person in a society on consumer buying decision.
a) Reference group
- Groups in society with which a person interacts.
- Act as a point of reference for consumers in making their decisions.
- Example of products : automobile, TV, clothing
3 Types of reference group :
 Direct membership groups – face to face membership group
Divided into 2 groups :
Primary membership groups – Interact regularly, informal face to face
eg. family, friends
Secondary membership groups – associate less and more formal
e.g clubs,religious groups,professional group

12. • Indirect membership groups
- Groups which one is not a member
- 2 types :
Aspirational groups – groups one would like to join and must confirm to the
groups norms ( attitude deemed acceptable by the group)
Example, many firms use athletes as spokespeople, and
these represent what many people would ideally like to be.
Non-aspirational groups- Groups which individual does not want to be associated
or be identified
• Opinion Leader
- Person of influence with in a group due to his or her knowledge, skills, character
- Example : David Beckham have strong influence on public
b. ) Family
Marketers must understand that the family unit makes many family decisions.
Purchase & information roles within family
1. Instigator : suggest, initiate the purchasing process

13. 2. Influencer: provide opinions that will influence the buyer
3. Decision maker: Decide whether to buy or not to buy
4. Purchasers: someone who purchases the product
5. Consumers: someone who uses the product
C.) Roles and status
- Roles consists of activities people are expected to perform according to people
round them.
- Example: Zul plays the role of a father to his children.
- Each role carry status
- Example : Zul role in his company as a Marketing Manger has a higher status in the
society than the role of a father.
- People often choose products that show their status in the society.

14. Personal factors
Personal factors that affect personal factors include :
a.) Age and life cycle stage
- People change the way the purchase as their age increases.
- Example : from baby – teenagers – adult
- It is also influenced by the family lifecycle stage : from singles to married with or
without children
b.) Occupation
- Occupations may also affect customers buying behaviour.
- Example: shoe manufacturer will design different type of shoes for office workers
or at the construction sites.
d.) Economic situation
- Recession is one of the economic indicator that will affect consumers buying
behaviour.
- Marketers need to take steps in redesigning or repricing their products based on
the current economic conditions

15. d.) Lifestyle
Person coming from the same social class and occupation for example may have
different lifestyle.
Lifestyle is a person’s way of living and reflected by their activities, interests and
opinions ( AIO )
Activites – work, study, dining, sleeping
Interests – travel, entertainment, food
Opinions - on social issues, product, politics
e.) Personality
- Personality traits are the characteristics to describe personality traits.
- Example: friendly, nerdy, happy-go-lucky
- Example: Nike linked to personality ‘Confidence’
f.) Self-Concept
- Also known as self-image
- How consumer perceives them selves in terms of attitudes, beliefs, and self
evaluations.
- Example: the product they buy or the credit card they carry support their self-image
The new Nescafe Gold is for those ‘who appreciate the finer things in life’

16. Psychological Factors
The psychological factors that affect purchasing behaviour are :
a.) Motivation
- What motivates the consumer to purchase the product.
- Motives are driving forces that cause a person to take action to satisfy needs.
- Please take note on Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’.
b.) Perceptions.
- We all perceive situation differently
- Different people perceive picture differently due to the following perceptual processes:
1. Selective attention: Aware of certain points and ignore others
2. Selective distortion: Change information to fit in with current belief
3. Selective retention: Remember points that support beliefs and ignore others
- Customers perception towards products : package design, brand name may affect their
buying behaviour.
c.) Learning
- Changes in an individual’s behaviour from experience.
- To change consumer behaviour towards your product, you need to educate them or giving
away new information.
- Example: Free sample, repetition of advertising messages instead of clustered at one time.

17. d.) Attitudes
- Feelings of like or dislike towards an object or an idea.
- Consumer attitudes toward a product greatly influence the success of failure of a
firm’s marketing strategy.
TYPES OF BUYING BEHAVIOUR
There are 4 types pf buying behahiour :
1. Complex Buying Behaviour
- Customers eek extensive decisions as they are unfamiliar with the product or
purchase infrequently.
- Products are typically expensive
- Spend time to look for information
- Example: House, Car, Computer
2. Dissonance Buying Behaviour
- Highly involved in the purchase but not able to see the differences among brand
choices.
- Example; Leather sofa, kitchen cabinet
- Consumers categorize the difference in accordance to price range.

18. 3. Habitual Buying Behavior
- Frequently purchased
- Low costs items
- Little search and decision effort
- Example: Food, snacks, drinks
4. Variety-seeking buying behaviour
- Low Consumer involvement
- See large difference among brands
- Example: Consumers change preference for certain body soap for variations
although satisfied with the current brand.