Note on Consumer Behavior

The main goal of the article is to bring forward the idea of abandon definitively the concept that all purchases are rational, with reference to some objective norm or to some universal law. Sometimes the wishes and choices of purchase of persons are predictable, sometimes are not. If the field of consumption was dominated by the laws of rationality, we would not need to have recourse to the cognitive analysis or the paradox. The people, either as individual consumers, that as corporate decision makers, express, in their behavior, the entire human nature, in which replaces, often, a slope of irrationality. Transferring these concepts in marketing, it can be argued that if it is possible to understand what causes voltage to a subject, you will be able to identify potential levers of purchasing, as this voltage is produced by stimuli that can be addressed in the search for a product or a service.

2016

Any buying evaluation criteria are usually the product attributes which one generally considers while making a purchase. Affective choice, as discussed in this article, uses evaluated criteria like style, looks, functionality, taste, brand-image etc. Consumers might be able to compare the attributes of brands while making a choice, but on certain attributes like quality, they use their own judgment which might be based on factors like price, country of origin, warranty, post-sales services, etc.Thus, for marketers, both evaluative criteria and individual judgment hold the key to influence the buying decision and consecutively, defining the success of a brand.

Ability of the Marketing executive to effectively and efficiently design, plan and produce a product, price it, strategically promote and distinctively distribute it, is determined by his ability to make the product satisfactory to a complex set of consumers. McCarthy (1971) opines that, Marketing is the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from the producers to consumers or users in order to satisfy customers and accomplish the firm's objectives. The consumer is the pivot on which all marketing activities and decisions revolve. The consumer as the central focus of marketing activities has remained complex and unpredictable. What motivates, induces or informs his choice of one product brand rather than the other has been a subject of investigations and researches. The formulation and adoption of major classic and contemporary models in consumer and organizational behaviour for managerial decision-making in marketing practice is justified on the need to ensure knowledge of consumers for effective and efficient service delivery. Consequently, this paper broadly reviews major classic contour behaviour models in relationship to managerial decision-making in marketing practice. INTRODUCTION The subject of consumer behaviour has dominated most part of contemporary Marketing literature. Colossal investments made in product design, packaging, quality distinction, advertising, sales promotion, among others are all aimed at wooing the customer to make favorable decisions towards a firm's product offering. The firm's task is made even more complex because the complexity of the consumer makes it apparently difficult to instantly determine his needs and wants. The consumer makes decisions based on a lot of priorities, including among others personal beliefs, peer group influences, social status, economic status, cultural affinity, and other environmental variables. Therefore, firms are expected to sufficiently demonstrate how distinctive their product offerings qualify to receive the patronage of consumers. Much as it is the obvious task of the firm to study and identify the complexities in a consumer in order to serve him better, so also would the consumer consciously make deliberate efforts to choose between one firm's offering and another.

Advanced Journal of Social Science

The weight of intuitive, sensory, emotional, and rational criteria in consumer decision making has been debated for ages, we could say. The rational model dominated Marketing all through the 20th Century, but on the onset of the new millennium, the case has been made, and strongly so, for a more integrated view of consumer behavior, that allows for, if you will, the rationalization of emotional conducts. In this paper, we present the results of an experiment that shows that purchases are not all that rational, and that –indeed– given the time, and the money to think it through, consumers will paradoxically rely more on their intuition, their emotions and sensations, that is, on feelings over rational criteria, to arrive at a purchase decision. This experiment manipulated two variables, time and money, using a convenience sample of undergraduate students in three classes of Pace University, NY, to apply the same situational questionnaire under two different hypothetical scenarios, wh...

Journal of Human Sciences, 2016

Behavioral economics is one of the sub-disciplines discussed through the process of economic thought. It studies the economic decisions of the individuals under the influence of social, emotional and cognitive factors. According to the rational behavior theory in economics, it is discussed that, the individuals may show irrational behaviors in spite of the expectation of rational behaviors. Economics is a human focused social science. The studies held, illustrate that the human behaviors have to be evaluated with the psychological factors. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of sales efforts of the drug firms on the economic decision making. The data gathered by the questionnaire show that the marketing strategies influence the decision making behavior of individuals.

1 Consumer behaviour: those actions directly involved in obtaining, consuming, and disposing of products and services, including the decision processes that precede and follow these actions (Engel et al, 1995:G3)

The role of the human perception is one of the most important questions. If we would be able to understand how the human brain perceives information and operate it, and how do we make our decisions, we could more precisely make the future forecasts and increase our efficiency. We obtain information from the external world from our senses: taste, hearing, smell, touch, sight. Than we somehow integrate and analyze perceived information and make our decision. Decision is an "outcome of mental processes (cognitive process) leading to the selection of a course of action among several alternatives. Every decision making process produces a final choice". How do we make a decision, or even better to ask what leads us to make a decision? All our decisions are directed by our instincts, unconsciously. The basic human instinct is self-preservation or, in other words, survival and reproduction. But the decisions, which we make according to our instincts, are different. In this study, ...

This paper provides a review of the applied behavioral literature in consumer choice. Beginning with Watson and LindsleyÕs initial forays into consumer behavior from their respective bases as basic behavioral researchers, the role of behavior analytic theory and application in consumer behavior is appraised. The applied behavior analysis movement brought operantbased applications into the consumer field, largely focusing on pro-soical and social marketing applications. Increased interest in behavioral theory sparked continuing research in classical conditioning of consumer attitudes and behaviors. Recent theoretical work in the Behavioral Perspective Model and in the Behavioral Ecology of Consumption both harken back to some of WatsonÕs early influences as well as forge new ground for a comprehensive behavioral account of consumption.

2010

By understanding how suboptimal choices are made, behavioral economics has the potential to offer insights to improve consumers' financial decisions. 2 Banking and Community Perspectives F e d e r a l r e s e r v e B a n k o F d a l l a s Perspectives Banking and Community alfreda B. norman assistant vice President and Community development officer Federal reserve Bank of dallas The increased complexity of the financial markets has made it difficult for consumers to choose products that best serve their interests. Behavioral economists explore consumers' psychological process in making decisions, such as immediate gratification, overconfidence, inertia or a lack of cognitive ability to understand the costs and benefits of financial services. They use experiments to examine "irrational" behaviors that contribute to less-than-optimal outcomes. In April 2010, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, in partnership with the University of Texas at Dallas, hosted a conference on behavioral economics research with particular focus on low-and moderate-income (LMI) consumers. This issue of Banking and Community Perspectives reviews the behavioral economics concepts presented at the conference and discusses application of the behavioral research findings to developing products, services and policies to help consumers make better financial decisions. ISSUE 3 2010

The study of consumers helps firms and organizations improve their marketing strategies by understanding issues such as how  The psychology of how consumers think, feel, reason, and select between different alternatives (e.g., brands, products);  The the psychology of how the consumer is influenced by his or her environment (e.g., culture, family, signs, media);  The behavior of consumers while shopping or making other marketing decisions;  Limitations in consumer knowledge or information processing abilities influence decisions and marketing outcome;  How consumer motivation and decision strategies differ between products that differ in their level of importance or interest that they entail for the consumer; and  How marketers can adapt and improve their marketing campaigns and marketing strategies to more effectively reach the consumer.