Chapter

Consumer Markets and Buying Behavior

McGraw-Hill/Irwin ©2007 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Chapter Goals

 Factors used to explain consumer behavior

 Consumer demographic changes
 Consumers decision-making
 Influences affecting consumers’ decisions
The Consumer Market

ULTIMATE CONSUMERS

Buy goods and services

for their own personal or
household use
Geographic Distribution
 Geographic Distribution

Growing
Rural Deconcentration
25% of the Population

Urban Metropolitan Areas:

75% of the Population Micropolitan
Combined

Real Growth
Suburban Population Economic, Racial,
Ethnic Implications
 Consumer Demographics

Most Income and financial assets

Age
held by older group

Family Family form over time is a

major determinant of consumer
Life Cycle behavior

Education, Majority are well-educated and

Income prosperous but 12.5% live
below poverty level

Race,
African Americans, Hispanics, Asians
Ethnicity
Family Life Cycle Stages
Bachelor

Young Married

Nine Full Nest I

stages Single Parents
with Divorced and Alone
different
Middle-aged Married
buying
Full Nest II
behavior
Empty Nest

Older Single
Consumer Buying-Decision Process
Consumer Buying-Decision Process

Loyalty

Involvement

Impulse
Buying
Consumer Buying-Decision Process

Need recognition

Identification of
alternatives

Evaluation of
alternatives

Purchase and
related decisions

Postpurchase
behavior
Information and Purchase Decisions

Buying Information

Commercial
sources

Social sources
Social Influences

Culture

Subcultures

Social class

Reference groups

Families and
Households
Psychological Influences

Motivation

Perception

Learning

Personality

Attitude
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
 Perception
Process of receiving, organizing, and assigning
meaning to information or stimuli detected by our five senses

Selective
Attention

Selective Selective
Perception Retention

Selective
Distortion
 Personality
An individual’s pattern of traits that influence
behavioral responses

Psychoanalytic
Theory
Hidden buying
motives
Dreams, hopes,
fantasies, fears Self-concept

Actual
Ideal
 Attitudes
Learned predisposition to respond to an
object in a consistently favorable
or unfavorable way

ATTITUDES

•Are Learned
•Have an Object
•Have Direction
•Have Intensity
• Are Stable
•Are Generalizable
 Situational Factors

Time: When consumers buy

Surroundings: Where consumers buy

Terms: Why consumers buy

Moods and Motives: Conditions under

which
consumers buy
 Key Terms and Concepts
 Ultimate consumer  Impulse buying
 Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)  Patronage buying motives
 Micropolitan Statistical Area  Postpurchase cognitive dissonance
 Combined Statistical Area (CSA)  Commercial information environment
 Demographics
 Social information environment
 Family life-cycle stage
 Culture
 Consumer buying decision process
 Subculture
 Level of Involvement
 Loyalty  Social class
 Reference groups
 Key Terms and Concepts
 Family  Stimulus-response theory
 Household  Personality
 Motive  Psychoanalytic theory
 Maslow’s need hierarchy  Self-concept
 Perception  Attitude
 Selective perception  Situational influence
 Learning