Introduction
Consumer behavior involves the psychological processes that consumers go through in recognizing needs, finding ways to solve these needs, making purchase decisions (e.g., whether or not to purchase a product and, if so, which brand and where), interpret information, make plans, and implement these plans (e.g., by engaging in comparison shopping or actually purchasing a product).
Learning Objecitves
- Understand the stages of the buying process and distinguish between low-involvement buying decisions and high-involvement buying decisions.
- Describe the situational factors that affect what consumers buy and when and explain what marketing professionals can do to make situational factors work to their advantage.
- Explain how a person's self-concept and ideal self affects what he or she buys; describe how companies market products to people based on their genders, life stages, and ages; and explain how looking at the lifestyles of consumers helps companies understand and better connect with them.
- Explain how Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs works and outline the additional psychological factors that affect people's buying behavior.
- Explain why the culture, subcultures, social classes, and families consumers belong to affect their buying behavior; and describe what reference groups and opinion leaders are.