Psychological Factors Consumer Buying Behavior †MyAssignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about the Psychological Factors Consumer Buying Behavior. Answer: Introduction Consumer behavior refers to study of the individuals, group of people or organizations regarding the activities associated with the purchasing, using and disposal of products and services. This discipline also includes the study of the consumers emotional, psychological and behavioral responses resulting in those activities. As stated by Solomon, Russell-Bennett Previte (2012), consumer behavior is a study of integrated social sciences with elements taken from sociology, psychology, ethnography, behavioral economics, social anthropology and marketing. This is a complex field of study. Understanding consumer behavior is extremely important for any consumer goods and services manufacturing company. The emotions, tastes and preferences and attitudes of the consumers have a significant influence on the buying behavior, which has a direct impact on the sales and profit of the goods (Solomon et al., 2014). The companies take appropriate actions regarding production and marketing strategies based on the consumer behavior. Consumer behavior is affected by many factors and psychological factors are one of them. While studying and understanding the consumers buying behavior, the companies must focus on understanding the psychological factors. There are many theories of consumer behavior that address various aspects of it and it is highly important to understand those by the product to make a strong position in the market. Frederiks, Stenner Hobman (2015) say that as there is constant change in the standard of living, fashion, trend, technology, tastes and preferences, the purchasing behavior of the consumers varies too. Consumer behavior is the foundation of revenue and profit for the business managers and marketers. The main purpose of marketing is to satisfy the needs and demands of the customers and understanding consumer behavior helps them to decide the changes to be made in the current process or introducing any new product or strategies to grow the business. Consumer behavior is mostly dependent on the psychological and social factors as well as on the business factors, such as, quality and price of the products and services, brand image etc. (Tukej, Golob Podnar, 2013). To make necessary changes in the features of the product or in the marketing strategy, the psychological factors of consumer behavior must be analyzed and understood by the companies. Theories of consumer behavior There are multiple theories of consumer behavior, addressing different aspects, suitable for different purpose. From the marketers point of view, there are four major theories of consumer behavior. These theories majorly focus on the psychological factors and purchasing behavior of the consumers. Those are as follows. This theory by Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen in the late 1960s,addresses the pre-existing attitude of the customers that influence the purchasing decision making. The consumers act in their best intentions and take rational actions. The specificity is important, as the consumers take a specific decision when an equally specific outcome is expected (LaCaille, 2013). Hence, marketers must provide a specific positive result with a purchase and within the time between the intention of purchase and actual purchase the consumers can change their mind to change their purchase decision based on some rational act. EKB model expands the theory of reasoned action with a 5 step process during a purchasing behavior. The consumers first absorb the marketing information, process the information and compare with expectations and past experiences, take purchasing decision based on rational insight, while being influenced by the decisional variables and external factors and finally make the purchase (Solomon et al., 2014). The marketers must provide enough information to inflict the purchasing desire among the target consumers to create a brand image. This theory presents a pyramidal and hierarchical structure of the needs of people that shapes the motivation of them. The elements from the bottom of the pyramid are physiological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualization (Anderson, 2014). The marketers try to create demands based on the hierarchy of needs. The consumers also prioritize their purchases towards fulfilling the needs, based on the hierarchy. This theory explains the creation of artificial need by the marketers. Consumers often make purchases based on the impulses. Sudden impulses for buying also exist alongside the rational buying decisions. According to Stern, the impulsive buying decisions are influenced by external factors. There are purely impulsive purchase, reminded impulsive purchase, suggested impulsive purchase and planned impulsive purchase. These provide immense scope to the marketers. They must find out the factors, such as, advertising, packaging and offers that can attract the target customers and create the impulses to make the purchase (Muruganantham Bhakat, 2013). Differences between consumer and organizational buying decisions Consumer buying decisions Organizational buying decisions Consumer wants and business needs Demand for discrete consumer products, which they may want but not need (Solomon, Russell-Bennett Previte, 2012) Businesses need a solution to the specific business problems or equipment required for daily operation Specialized market Markets are huge with billions of customers Markets are smaller and vertical Degree of independence and closer proximity Remote transactions between buyers and sellers through a retailer (Tukej, Golob Podnar, 2013) Supplier visits the business to make a deal. Product importance Tangible products are more important Purchasing decisions goes beyond the tangible product and include various technical, economic and personal relationship (Wind, Thomas Sheth, 2014) Product customization Smaller consumer goods often do not provide the scope for high level of customization Business products are specialized. They need a high level of technical customization before applying Product knowledge Mass market does not require knowledge about the supplier or production process for purchasing (Oliver, 2014) Business buyers have in depth technical knowledge about the product, manufacturers and suppliers (Miller Rice, 2013) Expert buyers and multiple decision makers Individual purchasing decisions can be taken Collaborative decision taken by the board Buying process Informal and takes shorter time Formal and takes longer time Relationship between theory of consumer behavior and the development of marketing activities Marketing activities are developed according to the behavior of the consumers. Social, economic, psychological factors influence the purchasing decisions of the consumers. The marketing activities or strategies are designed following these factors and aligning those to the external and internal influential factors. Segmentation, targeting and positioning are done by the marketers according to the consumer behavior (Armstrong et al., 2015). By applying the theory of hierarchical needs or impulsive buying, the marketers segments the market and implements targeting policy according to their behavior. Positioning of the products is also done based on the consumer behavior. The marketing or promotional activities are designed according to the marketing strategies, undertaken following the theories of consumer behavior (Oliver, 2014). The critical analysis of the marketing activities and the underlying consumer behavior can be explained through some real world examples. The marketers take the theory of needs, impulsive buying and reasoned action into consideration while developing the marketing activities. For example, the luxury car manufactures create artificial need to the customers, and they buy the luxury car for satisfying the social reasons, such as, esteem, status. They put the price over the basic need, which is a Veblen effect (Lantos, 2015). The cosmetics companies create artificial need and psychological feel good factor to the women and women buy the products to satisfy their impulsive buying behavior or the need of esteem and self actualization by looking beautiful and feeling confident (Schtte Ciarlante, 2016). People buy cereals to satisfy the basic need of food, while the cereal manufacturing companies offer slightly differentiated products and engage in non-price competition to capture a bigger market. These activities are undertaken to satisfy the impulsive buying nature and the physiological need of the consumers (East et al., 2016). People visit amusement parks to satisfy the need for recreation and the parks provide the feel of adventure, thrill and satisfaction that motivate the consumers to visit the parks (Lin, Li You, 2012). Application of theoretical frameworks to real world consumer contexts All the above mentioned examples are from the real world that highlights different type of purchasing behavior. All of these behaviors follow from the psychological factors, influencing the consumer behavior. The psychological factors of consumer behavior include lifestyle, self-image and personality of the consumers. The mannerisms, habits, emotions, tastes and references, perceptions, motivation, lifestyle outlook, learned experiences and motives, self-esteem, traditionalism, attitudes and beliefs are the fundamental psychological factors that determine the path of the consumer behavior (Oliver, 2014). All the consumer behavior is the resulting effect of various psychological, social and economic factors, which come from the lifestyle, social status, income, desire of the people and these shape the brand image, brand loyalty and responses to the marketing post purchase. The motivation and attitude towards making a purchase comes from the desire to own the product that would boost t he social status or make the consumer feel confident or just fulfill the basic needs (Shiau Luo, 2012). Hence, understanding the psychological factors is extremely essential to get the essence of the consumer behavior for the businesses. The needs and wants of the consumers should be analyzed by applying different theories of the consumer behavior, which would help the marketers to make proper segments of the market and choose the most appropriate strategy for the target market. References Anderson, A. (2014). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.The Prairie Light Review,36(2), 7. Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M., Brennan, R. (2015).Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education. East, R., Singh, J., Wright, M., Vanhuele, M. (2016).Consumer behaviour: Applications in marketing. Sage. Frederiks, E. R., Stenner, K., Hobman, E. V. (2015). 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