Consumer Behaviour and its Importance in the Modern Marketplace
Consumer behaviour can be defined as “the totality of consumers’ decisions with respect to the acquisition, consumption, and disposition of goods, services, time, and ideas by human decision – making units” (Hoyer and Macinnis, 2008, p.3) and it is an important point extensively explored by marketers.
In other words, consumer behaviour is the study of decision – making process and all activities that relate to acquiring evaluating, using and disposing associated with products and services. Moreover, the study of consumer behaviour involves learning customer perception about the company’s products and products of its competitors, the pattern of usage of the product by customers, customer attitude towards brand and product advertisements etc.
There are wide ranges of factors that impact upon consumer behaviour in direct and indirect ways. Specifically, these factors include marketing initiatives engaged by businesses, culture, values and group norms associated with customers, demographic characteristics of consumers, as well as, their social status, customer motives to making a purchase, the nature of their personalities, etc.
At the same time, “values, shared beliefs or group norms internalised by individuals, are developed through the process of socialisation and acculturation” (Saxena, 2009, p.163). Accordingly, recognising this fact, retailers attempt to formulate their integrated marketing communication strategies addressing and accommodating values, shared beliefs, and cultural differences associated with their target customer segment.
References
- Hoyer, W.D. & Macinnis, D.J. (2008) “Consumer Behaviour”, 5th edition, Cengage Learning
- Saxena, R. (2009) “Marketing Management” 4th edition, Tata McGraw-Hill Education