Consumer Behaviour
This article covers meaning, importance, factors & example of Consumer Behaviour from marketing perspective.
What is Consumer Behaviour?
Consumer Behaviour is a concept in marketing where in companies study how individual persons, groups of people or large entities buy, sell or interact with a product, service or a brand in the market. Consumer Behaviour by name means behaviour of the consumer which again means how consumer behaves around a particular product of a company. This behaviour can include consumption, buying etc.
Consumer Behaviour includes the amalgamation of various concepts like psychology, social science, marketing, finance etc. All the people are different and might have different consumer buying behaviour. People make buying decisions based on their personal experiences, their social influences, market trends etc.
In the past, intuitions, common sense and understanding of marketers defined consumer behaviour but scientific methods like market segmentation plays an important role in defining modern day consumer behaviour.
Importance of Consumer Behaviour
Consumer Behaviour is a very important concept in modern day marketing. It helps companies to pre-empt or predict how the consumer or customer would buy or consume their products or services. Competition is quite fierce in the market and every company wants to sell their products so in this case, understanding the custom closely and adjusting or manufacturing products as per their needs or wants.
Well studied consumer behaviour along with positive brand image of the company can lead to improvement in sale and consumption of the products or services of the company.
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Factors for Consumer Behaviour
1. Social Factors: Most of the time, consumer behaviour is influenced most by the social environment of the customer. The family of a person can directly affect the buying behaviour.
2. Cultural Factors: Larger culture can also influence the consumer behaviour. Religion, community etc. play an important role.
3. Psychology: Individual psychology is one of the most important factor in affecting one’s consumer behaviour. Attributes like beliefs, attitudes (VALS), personality, experiences etc. are quite critical in deciding how a consumer would buy and interact with a product or a brand. Customer perception is defined by psychology of an individual.
4. Economic: Economic factors are also quite important in consumer behaviour. These days socio-economic status is also considered.
The image below sums up various factors influencing consumer behavior.
Consumer Behaviour Examples
One of the great example can be how companies like McDonalds, Burger King, KFC etc. reinvented their brands and menu as per Indian consumer. Indian society prefers vegetarian options more than the conventional menu these companies offered globally. McDonalds understood the Indian consumer behaviour through research. They launched the famous McAloo Tikki Burger (Potato Patty based burger) and McVeggie Burger (Vegetable Patty based) along with other options which became instant hit in the Indian market and they established their brand in the country. KFC and Burger King also adopted similar strategies in India and have established them well in the market.
Hence, this concludes the definition of Consumer Behaviour along with its overview.
Browse the definition and meaning of more similar terms. The Management Dictionary covers over 1800 business concepts from 5 categories.
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