types of problem solving in consumer behaviour

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Consumer Motivation and Involvement

13 Needs, Wants, and Goals

Every New Year, many of us make resolutions — or goals — that eventually go unsatisfied: eat healthier; pay better attention in class; volunteer, exercise more. As much as we know our lives would improve if we actually achieved these goals, people quite often don’t follow through. But what if that didn’t have to be the case? What if every time we made a goal, we actually accomplished it? Each day, our behaviour is the result of countless goals — maybe not goals in the way we think of them, like lifting the heaviest weights or being the first person to land on Mars. But even with “mundane” goals, like getting food from the grocery store, or showing up to work on time, we are often enacting the same psychological processes involved with achieving loftier dreams. To understand how we can better attain our goals, let’s begin with defining what a goal is and what underlies it, psychologically.

A  goal is the cognitive representation of a desired state, or, in other words, our mental idea of how we’d like things to turn out (Fishbach & Ferguson 2007; Kruglanski, 1996). This desired end state of a goal can be clearly defined (e.g., stepping on the surface of Mars), or it can be more abstract and represent a state that is never fully completed (e.g., eating healthy). Underlying all of these goals, though, is motivation , or the psychological driving force that enables action in the pursuit of that goal (Lewin, 1935).

Motivation can stem from two places. First, it can come from the benefits associated with the process of pursuing a goal ( intrinsic motivation ). For example, you might be driven by the desire to have a fulfilling experience while working on your Mars mission. Second, motivation can also come from the benefits associated with achieving a goal ( extrinsic motivation ), such as the fame and fortune that come with being the first person on Mars (Deci & Ryan, 1985). One easy way to consider intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is through your eyes as a student. Does the student work hard on assignments because the act of learning is pleasing ( intrinsic motivation )? Or does the student work hard to get good grades, which will help land a good job ( extrinsic motivation )?

Needs & Wants

Consumer behaviour can be thought of as the combination of efforts and results related to the consumer’s need to solve problems. Consumer problem solving is triggered by the identification of some unmet need . A family consumes all of the milk in the house; or the tires on the family car wear out; or the bowling team is planning an end-of-the-season picnic: these present consumers with a problem which must be solved. Problems can be viewed in terms of two types of needs: physical (such as a need for food) or psychological (for example, the need to be accepted by others).

Although the difference is a subtle one, there is some benefit in distinguishing between needs and wants. A need is a basic deficiency given a particular essential item. You need food, water, air, security, and so forth. A want is placing certain personal criteria as to how that need must be fulfilled. Therefore, when we are hungry, we often have a specific food item in mind. Consequently, a teenager will lament to a frustrated parent that there is nothing to eat, while standing in front of a full refrigerator.

Most of marketing is in the want-fulfilling business, not the need- fulfilling business. Apple does not want you to buy just any watch, they want you to want to buy an Apple Watch. Likewise, Ralph Lauren wants you to want Polo when you shop for clothes. On the other hand, a nonprofit such as the Canadian Cancer Association would like you to feel a need for a check-up and does not care which doctor you go to. In the end, however, marketing is mostly interested in creating and satisfying wants.

Utilitarian & Hedonic Needs

Often discussion around needs are further explained in the context of those which are utilitarian ( practical and useful in nature ) and hedonic ( luxurious or desirable in nature ). Consumers satisfying their utilitarian needs will be more price sensitive than consumers seeking to satisfy hedonic needs who will justify high(er) prices due to the infrequency in which they would purchase a luxury item. Cognitive dissonance , or consumer guilt, is more likely to be associated with hedonic purchases than utilitarian ones.

Distinguishing Features Between Utilitarian Needs and Hedonic Needs

Prevention & Promotion Orientation

Research also distinguishes between two distinct self-regulatory orientations (or perceptions of effectiveness) in pursuing a goal: prevention and promotion.

A prevention emphasizes safety, responsibility, and security needs, and views goals as “oughts.” That is, for those who are prevention-oriented, a goal is viewed as something they should be doing, and they tend to focus on avoiding potential problems (e.g., exercising to avoid health threats). This self-regulatory focus leads to a vigilant strategy aimed at avoiding losses (the presence of negatives) and approaching non-losses (the absence of negatives).

On the other hand, a promotion focus views goals as “ideals,” and emphasizes hopes, accomplishments, and advancement needs. Here, people view their goals as something they want to do that will bring them added pleasure (e.g., exercising because being healthy allows them to do more activities). This type of orientation leads to the adoption of an eager strategy concerned with approaching gains (the presence of positives) and avoiding non-gains (the absence of positives).

To compare these two strategies, consider the goal of saving money. Prevention-focused people will save money because they believe it’s what they should be doing (an ought), and because they’re concerned about not having any money (avoiding a harm). Promotion-focused people, on the other hand, will save money because they want to have extra funds (a desire) so they can do new and fun activities (attaining an advancement). Although these two strategies result in very similar behaviours, emphasizing potential losses will motivate individuals with a prevention focus, whereas emphasizing potential gains will motivate individuals with a promotion focus. And these orientations — responding better to either a prevention or promotion focus — differ across individuals (chronic regulatory focus) and situations (momentary regulatory focus; Higgins, 1997).

Brands Applying Prevention or Promotion Orientations

Marketing Professional Farah Khan, says every marketer needs to understand that different consumers can respond differently to the same marketing strategy (Khan, 2015). How? The difference lies in how we perceive goals in relation to our personal values and believes (Khan, 2015). Prevention Orientation – or as Khan calls it, “Play to not lose” seeks ways to stay safe and secure; while Promotion Orientation – or “Play to win” – is all about risk and advancement.

Prevention Orientation: Avoiding Negative Outcomes

Marketers tailor their messages to consumers in order to appeal to their unique approaches to achieving goals. For example, consumers who are largely motivated to avoid harm/losses, act responsibly, and minimize damage, may be drawn to brands such as the ones below, which use persuasive messaging to highlight the avoidance of negative outcomes:

• The Body Shop & LUSH Cosmetics ( cruelty-free).
• Patagonia ( avoids excessive waste and environmentally harmful production practices ).
• Thrift clothing stores, such as The Goodwill ( sustainability; up-cycling ).
• Vape accessories ( reduced-risk smoking experience ).

Promotion Orientation: Seeking Rewards and Positive Outcomes

On the other hand, consumers with a promotion-focused goal orientation seek to maximize gain, benefit, and reward. Brands that appeal to these consumers may include:

• Axe Body Spray ( enhance attractiveness ).
• Birchbox ( personalized delivery of beauty products ).
• Dove ( promotes high self-esteem ).
• Music festivals and concerts ( memory-making experiences ).

Motivational Conflicts

Motivational conflict (or ambivalence) arises when people experience two goals that are incompatible with each other (Baker, Dickson, & Field, 2014). Consumers often find themselves in a state of conflict when two or more competing goals conflict with each other.

The three main types of motivational conflicts are:

• Approach-Approach: conflict occurs when a person must choose between two desirable choices (Solomon, 2017). If the goal is to take a vacation, you might be stuck between two really good options: a beach holiday or an alpine ski trip.
• Approach-Avoidance: conflict occurs when a person desires something, but also seeks to avoid it at the same time. This type of conflict carries both positive and negative outcomes for the consumer, such as eating delicious (yet unhealthy) junk food.
• Avoidance-Avoidance: conflict occurs when a person is faced to choose between two equally undesirable choices, both of which carry negative outcomes. Spending a sunny summer weekend studying for an exam or getting a failing grade on that exam are both very unpleasant outcomes!

Text Attributions

• The opening paragraph; the sections on “Goals” and “Prevention & Promotion” are adapted from: Fishbach, A. & Touré-Tillery, M. (2021). “ Motives and Goals “. In R. Biswas-Diener & E. Diener (Eds), Noba textbook series: Psychology. Champaign, IL: DEF publishers.

Baker, S., Dickson, J.M. & Field, M. (2004). Implicit priming of conflicting motivational orientations in heavy drinkers. BMC Psychology, 2, 28. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-014-0028-1.

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). The general causality orientations scale–Self-determination in personality. Journal of Research in Personality, 19 (2), 109–134.

Fishbach, A., & Ferguson, M. F. (2007). The goal construct in social psychology. In A. W. Kruglanski & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles , 490–515. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Higgins, E. T. (1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist, 52 (12), 1280–1300.

Khan, F. (2015, January 4). Consumer Persuasion Based on Promotion Or Prevention Focused Goals .  LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/consumer-persuasion-based-promotion-prevention-focused-farah-khan/

Kruglanski, A. W. (1996). Goals as knowledge structures. In P. M. Gollwitzer & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), The psychology of action: Linking cognition and motivation to behavior, 599–618. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Lewin, K. (1935). A dynamic theory of personality: Selected papers (D. E. Adams & K. E. Zener, Trans). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

Solomon, M., White, K. & Dahl, D.W. (2017). Consumer Behaviour: Buying, Having, Being Seventh Canadian Edition. Pearson Education Inc.

A goal represents how we would like things to turn out, also known as a desired end state.

The psychological energy, or driving force, that pushes us to pursue our goal(s).

The tendency to take action and pursue a goal (motivation) because the process itself will be beneficial and fulfilling.

The tendency to take action and pursue a goal (motivation) because the outcome and achievement itself will be beneficial.

A basic deficiency (lacking of) an essential item, such as food, water, and shelter.

Identifying specific and personal criteria on a need and how it should be fulfilled.

Needs that are considered practical and useful.

Needs that are considered luxurious and highly desirable.

Also known as "consumer remorse" or "consumer guilt", this is an unsettling feeling consumers may experience post-purchase if they feel their actions are not aligned with their needs.

A self-regulatory orientation we use emphasizes goals as things we should be doing as well as things we should be avoiding. This orientation focuses on safety, responsibility, and security needs as well as avoiding problems, dangers, and potential threats.

A self-regulatory orientation we use emphasizes goals as things we are hopeful about as well as things that bring accomplishment and advancement to our needs. This orientation focuses on things that we want to do that will bring us pleasure and positive outcomes.

In a marketing context, these different types of conflicts exist when consumers are faced with making a choice between purchasing decisions that bring on different outcomes -- positive and/or negative. The three motivational conflicts are approach-approach; approach-avoidance; and, avoidance-avoidance.

Introduction to Consumer Behaviour Copyright © by Andrea Niosi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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3.1 Understanding Consumer Markets and Buying Behavior

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• 1 Define consumer buying behavior.
• 2 Explain the nature of the buyer’s black box.
• 3 Describe how consumer behavior is characterized into types.

Consumer Markets and Consumer Buying Behavior Defined

How many buying decisions did you make today? Perhaps you stopped on the way to work or class to buy a soft drink or coffee, went to the grocery store on the way home to get bread or milk, or ordered something online. You likely make buying decisions nearly every day and probably don’t give most of those decisions much thought. But the way you make those decisions is significant for marketers, because if they can understand why you buy what you buy and when you buy it, they can use that information to boost revenue.

Consumer buying behavior refers to the decisions and actions people undertake to buy products or services for personal use. In other words, it’s the actions you take before buying a product or service, and as you will see, many factors influence that behavior. You and all other consumers combine to make up the consumer market .

The Buyer’s Black Box

It stands to reason that the hundreds of millions of people who make up the global consumer market don’t all buy the same products and services. Why do certain people prefer different items than others? The answer lies in the factors that influence consumer buying behavior. One model of consumer buying behavior is what’s known as the buyer’s black box , which is named as such because little is known about what goes on in the human mind. It’s also known as the stimulus-response model.

As illustrated in the model shown in Figure 3.2 , consumer buying behavior is based on stimuli coming from a variety of sources—from marketers in terms of the 4Ps (product, price, promotion, and place) , as well as from environmental stimuli, such as economic factors, legal/political factors, and technological and cultural factors.

These stimuli go into your “black box,” which consists of two parts: buyer characteristics such as beliefs and attitudes, motives, perceptions, and values, and the buyer decision-making process, which is covered later in the chapter. Your response is the outcome of the thinking that takes place in that black box. What will you buy, where, when, how often, and how much?

Types of Consumer Buying Behavior

Buying behavior is not influenced solely by the external environment. It’s also determined by your level of involvement in a purchase and the amount of risk involved in the purchase. There are four types of consumer buying behavior, as shown in Figure 3.3 .

Complex buying behavior occurs when you make a significant or expensive purchase, like buying a new car. Because you likely don’t buy a new car frequently, you’re highly involved in the buying decision, and you probably research different vehicles or talk with friends or family before reaching your decision. By that time, you’re likely convinced that there’s a significant difference among cars, and you’ve developed your own unique set of criteria that helps you decide on your purchase.

Dissonance-reducing buying behavior occurs when you’re highly involved in a purchase but see little difference among brands. Let’s say you’re replacing the flooring in your kitchen with ceramic tile—another expensive, infrequent purchase. You might think that all brands of ceramic tile in a certain price range are “about the same,” so you might shop around to see what’s available, but you’ll probably buy rather quickly, perhaps as a result of a good price or availability. However, after you’ve made your purchase, you may experience post-purchase dissonance (also known as buyer’s remorse) when you notice some disadvantages of the tile you purchased or hear good things about a brand you didn’t purchase.

Habitual buying behavior has low involvement in the purchase decision because it’s often a repeat buy, and you don’t perceive much brand differentiation. Perhaps you usually buy a certain brand of organic milk, but you don’t have strong brand loyalty. If your regular brand isn’t available at the store or another brand is on sale, you’ll probably buy a different brand.

Variety-seeking buying behavior has the lowest customer involvement because brand switching is your norm. You may not be unhappy with your last purchase of tortilla chips, but you simply want to try something new. It’s a matter of brand switching for the sake of variety rather than because of dissatisfaction with your previous purchase.

Link to Learning

The 4ps and consumer behavior.

Watch this short, humorous 4Ps video as a way to help you remember the concept. This video also includes several examples of target markets and how a marketer might respond.

Consumer behavior is an important marketing topic, and depending on the marketing program at your institution, you may have the opportunity to take a consumer behavior course and learn more about the topics covered above. Studying consumer behavior is important in marketing because it will teach you how to best know your customer, an integral aspect to marketing a product or service. You can also watch this selfLearn-en video to get a stronger grasp of consumer behavior.

As mentioned, environmental factors have an impact on consumer behavior. Can you think of a recent environmental influence that has had a significant impact? The coronavirus pandemic has probably been the most influential in recent years, and for many reasons! We still have a lot to learn about the impacts of the pandemic, and new information is being released daily about changing human behavior and the impact on marketing. For example, in this Google article, the author shares a cultural anthropologist’s insights for understanding consumer behavior and how it relates to three core needs all people experience—self-care, social connection, and identity—and how these needs correlate to recent YouTube video trends. Learn about how marketers can respond to this trend.

Continually trying to understand environmental influences will keep you on the cutting edge and ahead of the competition. It’s a great practice to always be looking for the latest information so that you can shift your strategies as needed. Bain & Company is an example of one company that wanted to understand how the pandemic changed consumer behavior. The company ran a survey in 2021 to better understand the impact of the pandemic, and it found five trends from the data.

A survey from Accenture , one of the top-ranked consulting firms in the world, found that the pandemic caused 50 percent of consumers to evaluate their purpose and what’s important to them. Read more about the findings in this article.

Always be looking for information to be the best marketer you can be!

Knowledge Check

It’s time to check your knowledge on the concepts presented in this section. Refer to the Answer Key at the end of the book for feedback.

• Dissonance-reducing buying behavior
• Variety-seeking buying behavior
• Complex buying behavior
• Habitual buying behavior
• technological
• Product choice
• Brand choice
• Social stimuli
• Purchase timing
• the consumer market
• the buyer’s black box
• consumer buying behavior
• complex buying behavior

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Consumer Motivation and Involvement

12 Key Terms and Concepts

• Cognitive dissonance (post-purchase dissonance): Also known as “consumer remorse” or “consumer guilt,” this is an unsettling feeling consumers may experience post-purchase if they feel their actions are not aligned with their needs.
• Consumer involvement: A consumer’s involvement level reflects how personally important or interested they are in purchasing/consuming an item.
• Customization: A marketing strategy used to increase involvement and engagement levels with consumers, customization involves the personalization of products for large groups of homogenous (similar) consumers.
• Drives/Drive theory: Drives represent the “tension” we feel when our body is out of balance, for example, due to hunger. Hunger is therefore a “drive state”: drives represent physiological characteristics, or, things that we feel, and are motivated to resolve because they are essential to our survival.
• Expectancy theory: This theory works very differently from Drive theory because it explains our motivations when desirable outcomes are achieved through our own effort and performance.
• Extrinsic motivation: The tendency to take action and pursue a goal (motivation) because the outcome and achievement itself will be beneficial.
• Goals: A goal represents how we would like things to turn out, also known as a desired end state.
• Hedonic needs: Needs that are considered luxurious and highly desirable.
• Hemostasis: A term used to describe a natural (and harmonious) state of our body’s systems. Homeostasis is achieved when a need or goal is satisfied (e.g. when we’re hungry we eat; when we’re tired we sleep).
• High involvement: High involvement decision making typically reflects when a consumer who has a high degree of interest and attachment to an item. These items may be relatively expensive, pose a high risk to the consumer (can’t be exchanged or refunded easily or at all), and require some degree of research or comparison shopping.
• Impulse buying: A type of purchase that is made with no previous planning or thought.
• Intrinsic motivation: The tendency to take action and pursue a goal (motivation) because the process itself will be beneficial and fulfilling.
• Limited problem solving: Consumers engage in limited problem solving when they have some information about an item, but continue to gather more information to inform their purchasing decision. This falls between “low” and “high” involvement on the involvement continuum.
• Low involvement: Low involvement decision making typically reflects when a consumer who has a low level of interest and attachment to an item. These items may be relatively inexpensive, pose low risk (can be exchanged, returned, or replaced easily), and not require research or comparison shopping.
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” (1943) is a motivational theory that places 5 needs in a hierarchical structure. It begins with basic (physiological) needs; safety needs; social needs; ego needs; and ends with self-actualization needs. Maslow’s theory was based on the belief that lower-level needs should be attended to before upper-level needs could be.
• Motivation: The psychological energy, or driving force, that pushes us to pursue our goal(s).
• Motivational conflicts: In a marketing context, these different types of conflicts exist when consumers are faced with making a choice between purchasing decisions that bring on different outcomes — positive and/or negative. The three motivational conflicts are approach-approach; approach-avoidance; and, avoidance-avoidance.
• Needs: A basic deficiency (lacking of) an essential item, such as food, water, and shelter.
• Personalization (individualization): A marketing strategy used to increase involvement and engagement levels with consumers, personalization involves tailoring a product (or service) to meet the unique needs & wants of a specific consumer.
• Prevention orientation: A self-regulatory orientation we use emphasizes goals as things we should be doing as well as things we should be avoiding. This orientation focuses on safety, responsibility, and security needs as well as avoiding problems, dangers, and potential threats.
• Promotion orientation: A self-regulatory orientation we use emphasizes goals as things we are hopeful about as well as things that bring accomplishment and advancement to our needs. This orientation focuses on things that we want to do that will bring us pleasure and positive outcomes.
• Routine response behaviour: This concept describes when consumers make low-involvement decisions that are “automatic” in nature and reflect a limited amount of information the consumer has gathered in the past.
• Utilitarian needs: Needs that are considered practical and useful.
• Wants: Identifying specific and personal criteria on a need and how it should be fulfilled.

Introduction to Consumer Behaviour Copyright © 2021 by Andrea Niosi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Consumer Behavior Models: Types & 5 Stages

Consumer behavior models are like tools that help you understand why people buy things when they buy them and how they decide to make a purchase. 

When you use these models to guide your efforts in getting new customers, you can make pretty good guesses about who will buy your product and ensure you’re reaching out to the right folks at the right moment. So, these models are like a map showing you the way to more successful sales.

In this blog, we will learn about different types of consumer behavior models, why it is important for businesses, and also discuss the stages of these models.

What is Consumer Behavior?

Consumer behavior is the examination of how customers make decisions when choosing products to fulfill their needs. 

It involves studying the behaviors and actions that lead consumers to purchase and use specific products. This understanding is of utmost significance for marketers, enabling them to align more effectively with customer expectations and preferences.

What is a consumer behavior model?

Consumer behavior models are like a map that helps us understand why people buy things. It’s a simplified way of looking at how consumers make choices. Think of it as a roadmap to figure out why someone picks one product over another. 

These buying behavior models show a person’s steps when deciding to buy something. They often include things like recognizing a need, searching for information, thinking about options, and finally making a decision.

These models are super useful for companies because they can follow the map to see how customers make choices. This helps businesses make better products, set the right prices, create effective ads, and choose where to sell their stuff. In a nutshell, a buyer behavior model is like a guide that shows how people decide what to buy, which is really beneficial for businesses.

Why Understanding Consumer Behavior Matters

Understanding consumer behavior matters for several important reasons:

Product development

Businesses can create products and services that align with your preferences and needs when they understand what you want. This leads to better-designed products that are more likely to meet your expectations, resulting in increased satisfaction and loyalty.

Targeted marketing

Consumer behavior insights allow companies to tailor their marketing efforts to what resonates with them. This means you’re more likely to come across advertisements and promotions that genuinely interest you, making your experience as a consumer more enjoyable.

Pricing strategies

Knowing how you perceive the value of products or services helps companies set appropriate prices. They can avoid overpricing, making products more affordable, or they can use premium pricing for products that they see as high-quality. This pricing intelligence helps both you and businesses find mutually beneficial deals.

Optimized distribution

Understanding your behavior helps businesses determine where and how to make their products available. They can ensure that their products are accessible to you where and when you are most likely to buy, whether in physical stores, e-commerce platforms, or other channels.

Enhanced customer experience

By leveraging insights into your purchasing behavior, businesses can provide you with a more personalized and satisfying customer experience . This might involve tailoring product recommendations, streamlining the buying process, or improving customer service. When businesses get you, it leads to a happier and more loyal customer like yourself.

Understanding consumer behavior is a cornerstone of effective marketing and business strategy, with benefits that extend to both you and your businesses. It results in better products, more relevant marketing, fair pricing, convenient access to products, and an improved overall shopping experience for you.

Types of consumer behavior models

Certainly, consumer behavior models come in various types, each offering a distinct perspective on how and why consumers make choices. Here are common types of customer behavior models:

Traditional consumer behavior model

Learning model.

The learning model is like a guide that explains how you pick things when you go shopping. It’s all about how you learn and make choices based on your experiences. Think of it like this: when you have a good experience with a product, like a yummy ice cream flavor, you remember it. 

So, the next time you’re buying ice cream, you might pick the same flavor because you learned that it’s tasty. These consumer behavior models help us understand that our past experiences play a big role in our shopping decisions. It’s like your shopping memory helping you choose what you like!

Economic Model

Economic models are like tools that help you make smart choices when you’re shopping. It’s all about finding the best deal for your money. Think of it this way: you want to get the most value from your cash. 

So, you look at things like the price, your budget, and the quality of the product. If a product gives you a lot of happiness for a fair price, you’re more likely to choose it. These models help you shop wisely by considering your decisions’ economics, ensuring you get the most bang for your buck!

Psychoanalytical model

The psychoanalytical model is a bit like a detective for your shopping choices. It tries to figure out why you buy certain things based on your hidden feelings and desires. Imagine it’s like there’s a secret shopper inside your head. This model believes that even you might not know why you make some choices.

It suggests that deep inside, your wishes and emotions are guiding your shopping decisions. So, when you pick a product, it might be because it connects with something you didn’t even realize you wanted. This model helps uncover those hidden reasons behind your purchases, kind of like a shopping detective!

Sociocultural Models

Sociocultural consumer behavior models are like the puzzle pieces that make up your shopping decisions. They focus on how your family, friends, and the world around you influence what you choose to buy. Imagine you’re like a sponge, soaking up ideas from your surroundings. 

This sociological model says that the culture you live in, the traditions you follow, and even the opinions of your friends and family can affect your shopping choices. So, when you pick a product, it might be because it fits with what’s familiar or what people around you think is a good choice. These models help us see how the world outside you shapes your shopping adventure!

Contemporary consumer behavior models

Engel-kollat-blackwell (ekb) model.

The Engel-Kollat-Blackwell (EKB) model is like a roadmap for your shopping journey. It helps you understand all the steps you go through when deciding to buy something.

• Recognizing a problem: First, you realize that you need or want something, like a new phone or a pair of shoes. This model acknowledges that you’re like a detective, searching for what’s missing in your life.
• Gathering information: Next, you start gathering facts, like reading reviews or asking friends for advice. It’s like you’re collecting clues to solve a mystery.
• Evaluating options: You compare different products, considering things like features, prices, and quality. This step is a bit like being a judge at a talent show, trying to find the best contestant.
• Making a choice: Eventually, you make a decision and choose a product. It’s like casting your vote for the best candidate.
• Post-purchase evaluation: After buying, you think about whether you’re happy with your choice. It’s like reflecting on how well your favorite team performed after a game.

This model helps you see that shopping is a step-by-step process, kind of like following a treasure map with a final “X” that marks your purchase.

Black Box Model

The Black Box model is like a magic box that helps you understand your shopping decisions. Imagine it as a mysterious container with inputs, processes inside, and outputs.

• Inputs (Stimuli): This is where everything begins. It’s like all the things that catch your attention when you’re shopping – ads, recommendations, and product displays. It’s like someone handing you a riddle to solve.
• Inside the Black Box: Inside this magical box, something interesting happens, but you can’t see exactly what. It’s where your brain works its magic, processing all the information you’ve gathered. It’s like your thoughts are a secret recipe, mixing all the ingredients together.
• Outputs: This is where your decision comes out. You make a choice, like picking a product to buy or deciding not to. It’s like solving the riddle from the beginning, and your answer is your decision.

Hawkins Stern Impulse Buying Model

The “Hawkins Stern Impulse Buying Model” challenges the idea that you always make carefully thought-out decisions before buying something. It also sorts impulse buying into different types:

• Escape purchase: Sometimes, you see something that’s just too visually appealing to resist, even if you didn’t plan to buy it when you made your shopping list.
• Reminder purchase: You might get influenced by in-store promotions or reminders, like those bag clips strategically placed in the potato chip aisle that make you realize you need them.
• Suggested purchase: Social media ads, store employees, or even your family and friends might suggest things to you. For example, a website might suggest that other customers bought a lens cleaner and glasses case with their glasses, and you decide to get them, too.
• Planned purchase: Occasionally, you plan to buy something, and when the store offers a discount or a promotion deal, you go ahead and get it.

Many business professionals like to use this consumer behavior modeling because, let’s face it, we all make impulse purchases from time to time. For them, it’s a way to focus on in-store marketing, product packaging, and discounts.

Howard Sheth Model

The “Howard Sheth Model” explains that when you make a purchase, there’s a specific decision-making process with certain factors that influence it. 

Marketing and business development professionals find this model useful in most industries because, as a consumer, you may follow this process when buying any product or service. This decision-making process involves three levels:

• Extensive problem-solving: Imagine you know very little about the product you want to buy and the companies that make it. You use your problem-solving skills to figure out what’s available and what the market offers.
• Limited problem-solving: As you learn more about the product and compare different options, you’re at this level. It’s like you’re becoming a savvy shopper, checking out what various companies have to offer.
• Habitual response behavior: At this stage, you know a lot about the product you want and how to get it. It’s almost like second nature; you’re very familiar with the product and the available ways to buy it.

This consumer behavior models help professionals understand your decision-making process when you’re making a purchase, regardless of the product or service. It guides them in tailoring their strategies to meet your specific needs at each stage of the process.

Stages of the consumer behavior model

The consumer behavior models typically consist of five main stages:

Stage 01: Problem recognition

This is when you become aware of a need or desire for a product or service. It might occur when you realize you’re running low on a particular item, your current product no longer satisfies your needs, or when you spot something new that catches your attention.

Stage 02: Information search

Once you’ve recognized the problem or need, you start looking for information on potential solutions. You gather data from various sources, like doing online research, asking friends and family, reading reviews, or visiting stores.

Stage 03: Evaluation of alternatives

At this point, you compare the available options. You carefully weigh the benefits and drawbacks of different products or brands to figure out which one aligns best with your needs and preferences.

Stage 04: Purchase decision

After evaluating the alternatives, you make the decision about which product or brand to buy. This is where you commit and complete the purchase.

Stage 05: Post-purchase evaluation

Once you’ve made the purchase, you reflect on your decision. You consider whether the product or service meets your expectations and if you’re satisfied with your choice. This stage can influence your buying decisions and your perception of the brand.

These stages create a framework for understanding your journey as a consumer, from recognizing a need to making a purchase and evaluating your satisfaction afterward. Businesses and marketers use this model to tailor their strategies at each stage to meet your needs and expectations effectively.

How does QuestionPro help in creating consumer behavior models?

QuestionPro is a versatile survey and research platform that can significantly help in creating customer behavior models. Here’s how it can help:

Problem recognition

• Survey design: QuestionPro allows you to design surveys that help identify consumer needs and desires. You can create questions that uncover what triggers consumers to recognize a problem or a need.

Information search

• Data collection: You can use QuestionPro to collect consumer insights behavior data about how consumers search for information. Online surveys and feedback forms can help you understand where consumers go to gather information and what sources they trust.

Evaluation of alternatives

• Segmentation: QuestionPro’s segmentation features help you categorize consumers into different groups based on their preferences. This is invaluable for understanding how various segments evaluate alternatives differently.
• Advanced analytics: Use the platform’s analytical tools to delve into consumer evaluations. Analyze how consumers weigh pros and cons when making decisions.

Purchase decision

• Feedback integration: Integrate feedback from various touchpoints, including e-commerce platforms, to understand the factors that influence the final purchase decision.
• Survey customization: Create surveys that specifically explore what factors led to the purchase decision. QuestionPro’s customization features enable you to target these questions accurately.

Post-purchase evaluation

• Continuous feedback: Use QuestionPro to set up ongoing surveys that gather post-purchase feedback. This helps you understand if consumers are satisfied with their choices and if they would make the same decision again.
• Reporting: Utilize QuestionPro’s reporting and visualization tools to present your post-purchase evaluation findings effectively.

Consumer behavior models are not just theoretical frameworks; they are powerful tools businesses use to understand their customers better. By unlocking the secrets of consumer behavior, companies can create successful strategies that lead to higher customer satisfaction and improved overall performance.

Throughout the entire process of creating consumer behavior models, QuestionPro serves as a comprehensive platform for survey design, data collection, segmentation, analytics, feedback integration, and reporting. 

It empowers you to collect and analyze data that is crucial for understanding consumer behavior, helping you build more accurate and insightful models. So, the next time you want to create a model for your business, remember that QuestionPro is always there to make your consumer behavior model excellent!

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BUS602: Marketing Management

The Consumer's Decision Making Process

Read these sections on the consumer purchase decision process. Consider the degree of involvement in a purchase, and how this would apply to some, but not all purchasing decisions.

Low-Involvement Versus High-Involvement Buying Decisions and the Consumer's Decision-Making Process

Learning objectives.

• Distinguish between low-involvement and high-involvement buying decisions.
• Understand what the stages of the buying process are and what happens in each stage.

As you have seen, many factors influence a consumer's behavior. Depending on a consumer's experience and knowledge, some consumers may be able to make quick purchase decisions and other consumers may need to get information and be more involved in the decision process before making a purchase. The level of involvement reflects how personally important or interested you are in consuming a product and how much information you need to make a decision. The level of involvement in buying decisions may be considered a continuum from decisions that are fairly routine (consumers are not very involved) to decisions that require extensive thought and a high level of involvement. Whether a decision is low, high, or limited, involvement varies by consumer, not by product, although some products such as purchasing a house typically require a high-involvement for all consumers. Consumers with no experience purchasing a product may have more involvement than someone who is replacing a product. You have probably thought about many products you want or need but never did much more than that. At other times, you've probably looked at dozens of products, compared them, and then decided not to purchase any one of them. When you run out of products such as milk or bread that you buy on a regular basis, you may buy the product as soon as you recognize the need because you do not need to search for information or evaluate alternatives. As Nike would put it, you "just do it". Low-involvement decisions are, however, typically products that are relatively inexpensive and pose a low risk to the buyer if she makes a mistake by purchasing them. Consumers often engage in routine response behavior when they make low-involvement decisions - that is, they make automatic purchase decisions based on limited information or information they have gathered in the past. For example, if you always order a Diet Coke at lunch, you're engaging in routine response behavior. You may not even think about other drink options at lunch because your routine is to order a Diet Coke, and you simply do it. Similarly, if you run out of Diet Coke at home, you may buy more without any information search. Some low-involvement purchases are made with no planning or previous thought. These buying decisions are called impulse buying . While you're waiting to check out at the grocery store, perhaps you see a magazine with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt on the cover and buy it on the spot simply because you want it. You might see a roll of tape at a check-out stand and remember you need one or you might see a bag of chips and realize you're hungry or just want them. These are items that are typically low-involvement decisions. Low-involvement decisions aren't necessarily products purchased on impulse, although they can be. By contrast, high-involvement decisions carry a higher risk to buyers if they fail, are complex, and/or have high price tags. A car, a house, and an insurance policy are examples. These items are not purchased often but are relevant and important to the buyer. Buyers don't engage in routine response behavior when purchasing high-involvement products. Instead, consumers engage in what's called extended problem solving , where they spend a lot of time comparing different aspects such as the features of the products, prices, and warranties. High-involvement decisions can cause buyers a great deal of postpurchase dissonance (anxiety) if they are unsure about their purchases or if they had a difficult time deciding between two alternatives. Companies that sell high-involvement products are aware that postpurchase dissonance can be a problem. Frequently, they try to offer consumers a lot of information about their products, including why they are superior to competing brands and how they won't let the consumer down. Salespeople may be utilized to answer questions and do a lot of customer "hand-holding". Figure 3.8

Allstate's "You're in Good Hands" advertisements are designed to convince consumers that the insurance company won't let them down. Limited problem solving falls somewhere between low-involvement (routine) and high-involvement (extended problem solving) decisions. Consumers engage in limited problem solving when they already have some information about a good or service but continue to search for a little more information. Assume you need a new backpack for a hiking trip. While you are familiar with backpacks, you know that new features and materials are available since you purchased your last backpack. You're going to spend some time looking for one that's decent because you don't want it to fall apart while you're traveling and dump everything you've packed on a hiking trail. You might do a little research online and come to a decision relatively quickly. You might consider the choices available at your favorite retail outlet but not look at every backpack at every outlet before making a decision. Or you might rely on the advice of a person you know who's knowledgeable about backpacks. In some way you shorten or limit your involvement and the decision-making process. Products, such as chewing gum, which may be low-involvement for many consumers often use advertising such as commercials and sales promotions such as coupons to reach many consumers at once. Companies also try to sell products such as gum in as many locations as possible. Many products that are typically high-involvement such as automobiles may use more personal selling to answer consumers' questions. Brand names can also be very important regardless of the consumer's level of purchasing involvement. Consider a low- versus high-involvement decision - say, purchasing a tube of toothpaste versus a new car. You might routinely buy your favorite brand of toothpaste, not thinking much about the purchase (engage in routine response behavior), but not be willing to switch to another brand either. Having a brand you like saves you "search time" and eliminates the evaluation period because you know what you're getting. When it comes to the car, you might engage in extensive problem solving but, again, only be willing to consider a certain brand or brands. For example, in the 1970s, American-made cars had such a poor reputation for quality that buyers joked that a car that's "not Jap [Japanese made] is crap". The quality of American cars is very good today, but you get the picture. If it's a high-involvement product you're purchasing, a good brand name is probably going to be very important to you. That's why the manufacturers of products that are typically high-involvement decisions can't become complacent about the value of their brands.

1970s American Cars

Today, Lexus is the automotive brand that experiences the most customer loyalty. For a humorous, tongue-in-cheek look at why the brand reputation of American carmakers suffered in the 1970s, check out this clip.

Stages in the Buying Process

Figure 3.9 "Stages in the Consumer's Purchasing Process" outlines the buying stages consumers go through. At any given time, you're probably in a buying stage for a product or service. You're thinking about the different types of things you want or need to eventually buy, how you are going to find the best ones at the best price, and where and how you will buy them. Meanwhile, there are other products you have already purchased that you're evaluating. Some might be better than others. Will you discard them, and if so, how? Then what will you buy? Where does that process start? Figure 3.9 Stages in the Consumer's Purchasing Process

Stage 1. Need Recognition

You plan to backpack around the country after you graduate and don't have a particularly good backpack. You realize that you must get a new backpack. You may also be thinking about the job you've accepted after graduation and know that you must get a vehicle to commute. Recognizing a need may involve something as simple as running out of bread or milk or realizing that you must get a new backpack or a car after you graduate. Marketers try to show consumers how their products and services add value and help satisfy needs and wants. Do you think it's a coincidence that Gatorade, Powerade, and other beverage makers locate their machines in gymnasiums so you see them after a long, tiring workout? Previews at movie theaters are another example. How many times have you heard about a movie and had no interest in it - until you saw the preview? Afterward, you felt like you had to see it.

Stage 2. Search for Information

For products such as milk and bread, you may simply recognize the need, go to the store, and buy more. However, if you are purchasing a car for the first time or need a particular type of backpack, you may need to get information on different alternatives. Maybe you have owned several backpacks and know what you like and don't like about them. Or there might be a particular brand that you've purchased in the past that you liked and want to purchase in the future. This is a great position for the company that owns the brand to be in - something firms strive for. Why? Because it often means you will limit your search and simply buy their brand again. If what you already know about backpacks doesn't provide you with enough information, you'll probably continue to gather information from various sources. Frequently people ask friends, family, and neighbors about their experiences with products. Magazines such as Consumer Reports (considered an objective source of information on many consumer products) or Backpacker Magazine might also help you. Similar information sources are available for learning about different makes and models of cars. Internet shopping sites such as Amazon.com have become a common source of information about products. Epinions.com is an example of a consumer-generated review site. The site offers product ratings, buying tips, and price information. Amazon.com also offers product reviews written by consumers. People prefer "independent" sources such as this when they are looking for product information. However, they also often consult non-neutral sources of information, such advertisements, brochures, company websites, and salespeople.

Stage 3. Product Evaluation

Obviously, there are hundreds of different backpacks and cars available. It's not possible for you to examine all of them. In fact, good salespeople and marketing professionals know that providing you with too many choices can be so overwhelming that you might not buy anything at all. Consequently, you may use choice heuristics or rules of thumb that provide mental shortcuts in the decision-making process. You may also develop evaluative criteria to help you narrow down your choices. Backpacks or cars that meet your initial criteria before the consideration will determine the set of brands you'll consider for purchase. Evaluative criteria are certain characteristics that are important to you such as the price of the backpack, the size, the number of compartments, and color. Some of these characteristics are more important than others. For example, the size of the backpack and the price might be more important to you than the color - unless, say, the color is hot pink and you hate pink. You must decide what criteria are most important and how well different alternatives meet the criteria. Figure 3.10

Osprey backpacks are known for their durability. The company has a special design and quality control center, and Osprey's salespeople annually take a "canyon testing" trip to see how well the company's products perform. Companies want to convince you that the evaluative criteria you are considering reflect the strengths of their products. For example, you might not have thought about the weight or durability of the backpack you want to buy. However, a backpack manufacturer such as Osprey might remind you through magazine ads, packaging information, and its Web site that you should pay attention to these features - features that happen to be key selling points of its backpacks. Automobile manufacturers may have similar models, so don't be afraid to add criteria to help you evaluate cars in your consideration set.

Stage 4. Product Choice and Purchase

With low-involvement purchases, consumers may go from recognizing a need to purchasing the product. However, for backpacks and cars, you decide which one to purchase after you have evaluated different alternatives. In addition to which backpack or which car, you are probably also making other decisions at this stage, including where and how to purchase the backpack (or car) and on what terms. Maybe the backpack was cheaper at one store than another, but the salesperson there was rude. Or maybe you decide to order online because you're too busy to go to the mall. Other decisions related to the purchase, particularly those related to big-ticket items, are made at this point. For example, if you're buying a high-definition television, you might look for a store that will offer you credit or a warranty.

Stage 5. Postpurchase Use and Evaluation

At this point in the process you decide whether the backpack you purchased is everything it was cracked up to be. Hopefully it is. If it's not, you're likely to suffer what's called postpurchase dissonance . You might call it buyer's remorse. Typically, dissonance occurs when a product or service does not meet your expectations. Consumers are more likely to experience dissonance with products that are relatively expensive and that are purchased infrequently. You want to feel good about your purchase, but you don't. You begin to wonder whether you should have waited to get a better price, purchased something else, or gathered more information first. Consumers commonly feel this way, which is a problem for sellers. If you don't feel good about what you've purchased from them, you might return the item and never purchase anything from them again. Or, worse yet, you might tell everyone you know how bad the product was. Companies do various things to try to prevent buyer's remorse. For smaller items, they might offer a money back guarantee or they might encourage their salespeople to tell you what a great purchase you made. How many times have you heard a salesperson say, "That outfit looks so great on you!" For larger items, companies might offer a warranty, along with instruction booklets, and a toll-free troubleshooting line to call or they might have a salesperson call you to see if you need help with product. Automobile companies may offer loaner cars when you bring your car in for service. Companies may also try to set expectations in order to satisfy customers. Service companies such as restaurants do this frequently. Think about when the hostess tells you that your table will be ready in 30 minutes. If they seat you in 15 minutes, you are much happier than if they told you that your table would be ready in 15 minutes, but it took 30 minutes to seat you. Similarly, if a store tells you that your pants will be altered in a week and they are ready in three days, you'll be much more satisfied than if they said your pants would be ready in three days, yet it took a week before they were ready.

Stage 6. Disposal of the Product

There was a time when neither manufacturers nor consumers thought much about how products got disposed of, so long as people bought them. But that's changed. How products are being disposed of is becoming extremely important to consumers and society in general. Computers and batteries, which leech chemicals into landfills, are a huge problem. Consumers don't want to degrade the environment if they don't have to, and companies are becoming more aware of this fact. Take for example Crystal Light, a water-based beverage that's sold in grocery stores. You can buy it in a bottle. However, many people buy a concentrated form of it, put it in reusable pitchers or bottles, and add water. That way, they don't have to buy and dispose of plastic bottle after plastic bottle, damaging the environment in the process. Windex has done something similar with its window cleaner. Instead of buying new bottles of it all the time, you can purchase a concentrate and add water. You have probably noticed that most grocery stores now sell cloth bags consumers can reuse instead of continually using and discarding of new plastic or paper bags. Figure 3.11

The hike up to Mount Everest used to be pristine. Now it looks more like this. Who's responsible? Are consumers or companies responsible, or both? Other companies are less concerned about conservation than they are about planned obsolescence. Planned obsolescence is a deliberate effort by companies to make their products obsolete, or unusable, after a period of time. The goal is to improve a company's sales by reducing the amount of time between the repeat purchases consumers make of products. When a software developer introduces a new version of product, it is usually designed to be incompatible with older versions of it. For example, not all the formatting features are the same in Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010. Sometimes documents do not translate properly when opened in the newer version. Consequently, you will be more inclined to upgrade to the new version so you can open all Word documents you receive. Products that are disposable are another way in which firms have managed to reduce the amount of time between purchases. Disposable lighters are an example. Do you know anyone today that owns a nondisposable lighter? Believe it or not, prior to the 1960s, scarcely anyone could have imagined using a cheap disposable lighter. There are many more disposable products today than there were in years past - including everything from bottled water and individually wrapped snacks to single-use eye drops and cell phones. Figure 3.12

Disposable lighters came into vogue in the United States in the 1960s. You probably don't own a cool, nondisposable lighter like one of these, but you don't have to bother refilling it with lighter fluid either.

Key Takeaways

Consumer behavior looks at the many reasons why people buy things and later dispose of them. Consumers go through distinct buying phases when they purchase products: (1) realizing the need or wanting something, (2) searching for information about the item, (3) evaluating different products, (4) choosing a product and purchasing it, (5) using and evaluating the product after the purchase, and (6) disposing of the product. A consumer's level of involvement is how interested he or she is in buying and consuming a product. Low-involvement products are usually inexpensive and pose a low risk to the buyer if he or she makes a mistake by purchasing them. High-involvement products carry a high risk to the buyer if they fail, are complex, or have high price tags. Limited-involvement products fall somewhere in between.

Review Questions

• How do low-involvement decisions differ from high-involvement decisions in terms of relevance, price, frequency, and the risks their buyers face? Name some products in each category that you've recently purchased.
• What stages do people go through in the buying process for high-involvement decisions? How do the stages vary for low-involvement decisions?
• What is postpurchase dissonance and what can companies do to reduce it?

Understanding and shaping consumer behavior in the next normal

Months after the novel coronavirus was first detected in the United States, the COVID-19 crisis continues to upend Americans’ lives and livelihoods. The pandemic has disrupted nearly every routine in day-to-day life. The extent and duration of mandated lockdowns and business closures have forced people to give up even some of their most deeply ingrained habits—whether spending an hour at the gym after dropping the kids off at school, going to a coffee shop for a midday break, or enjoying Saturday night at the movies.

About the authors

This article, a collaboration between McKinsey and the Yale Center for Customer Insights, was written by Tamara Charm, Ravi Dhar, Stacey Haas , Jennie Liu, Nathan Novemsky, and Warren Teichner .

Such disruptions in daily experiences present a rare moment. In ordinary times, consumers tend to stick stubbornly to their habits, resulting in very slow adoption (if any) of beneficial innovations  that require behavior change. Now, the COVID-19 crisis has caused consumers everywhere to change their behaviors —rapidly and in large numbers. In the United States, for example, 75 percent of consumers have tried a new store, brand, or different way of shopping  during the pandemic. Even though the impetus for that behavior change may be specific to the pandemic and transient, consumer companies would do well to find ways to meet consumers where they are today and satisfy their needs in the postcrisis period.

Behavioral science tells us that identifying consumers’ new beliefs, habits, and “peak moments” is central to driving behavioral change. Five actions can help companies influence consumer behavior for the longer term:

• Reinforce positive new beliefs.
• Shape emerging habits with new offerings.
• Sustain new habits, using contextual cues.
• Align messages to consumer mindsets.
• Analyze consumer beliefs and behaviors at a granular level.

Reinforce positive new beliefs

According to behavioral science, the set of beliefs that a consumer holds about the world is a key influencer of consumer behavior. Beliefs are psychological—so deeply rooted that they prevent consumers from logically evaluating alternatives and thus perpetuate existing habits and routines. Companies that attempt to motivate behavioral change by ignoring or challenging consumers’ beliefs are fighting an uphill battle.

The COVID-19 crisis, however, has forced many consumers to change their behaviors, and their new experiences have caused them to change their beliefs about a wide range of everyday activities, from grocery shopping to exercising to socializing. When consumers are surprised and delighted by new experiences, even long-held beliefs can change, making consumers more willing to repeat the behavior, even when the trigger (in this case, the COVID-19 pandemic) is no longer present. In other words, this is a unique moment in time during which companies can reinforce and shape behavioral shifts to position their products and brands better for the next normal.

When consumers are surprised and delighted by new experiences, even long-held beliefs can change, making consumers more willing to repeat the behavior.

For example, approximately 15 percent of US consumers tried grocery delivery for the first time during the COVID-19 crisis. Among those first timers, more than 80 percent say they were satisfied with the ease and safety of the experience; 70 percent even found it enjoyable. And 40 percent intend to continue getting their groceries delivered after the crisis, suggesting that they’ve jettisoned any previously held beliefs about grocery delivery being unreliable or inconvenient; instead, they’ve been surprised and delighted by the benefits of delivery.

Another example of changing beliefs involves at-home exercise. The US online fitness market has seen approximately 50 percent growth in its consumer base since February 2020; the market for digital home-exercise machines has grown by 20 percent. It’s likely that many people who tried those fitness activities for the first time during the pandemic believed that at-home exercise couldn’t meet their exercise needs. That belief has clearly changed for many of these consumers: 55 percent who tried online fitness programs and 65 percent who tried digital exercise machines say they will continue to use them, even after fitness centers and gyms reopen. To reinforce the new belief that online fitness can be motivating and enjoyable, NordicTrack, in a recent TV ad titled “Face Off,” shows that online workouts can foster the same friendly competition and connection that people look for when they go to the gym or attend in-person exercise classes.

An effective way to reinforce a new belief is to focus on peak moments—specific parts of the consumer decision journey that have disproportionate impact and that consumers tend to remember most. Peak moments often include first-time experiences with a product or service, touchpoints at the end of a consumer journey (such as the checkout process in a store), and other moments of intense consumer reaction.

Some companies have focused on enhancing the consumer’s first-time experience. Plant-based-meat  manufacturer Beyond Meat, for instance, was already benefiting from delays in meat production in the early days of the COVID-19 crisis: its sales more than doubled between the first and second quarters of 2020. In collaboration with local restaurants  and catering companies, the company has been delivering free, professionally prepared food to hospitals and other community centers. By giving away Beyond Burgers prepared by professional chefs, Beyond Meat is creating positive first experiences with its product at a time when consumers are more open to trial.

As the consumer journey has changed, so have the peak moments, and it’s crucial for companies to identify and optimize them. For example, a peak moment in a grocery store might be the discovery of an exciting new product on the shelf. In the online-grocery journey, however, a peak moment might instead be on-time delivery or the “unboxing” of the order (the experience of taking the delivered items out of the packaging). Grocers could consider including a handwritten thank-you note or some other surprise, such as a free sample, to reinforce consumers’ positive connections with the experience.

Highly emotional occasions can spark intense consumer reactions and therefore present an opportunity for companies to create peak moments associated with their products or brands. For example, when graduations shifted from formal, large-scale ceremonies to at-home, family celebrations, Krispy Kreme offered each 2020 graduate a dozen specially decorated doughnuts for free. With that promotion, the company connected its brand with an emotional event that may not have been a key occasion for doughnuts prior to the pandemic.

Shape emerging habits with new products

Companies can nudge consumers toward new habits through product innovation. For instance, the COVID-19 crisis has spurred consumers to become more health oriented  and increase their intake of vitamins and minerals. Unilever reported a sales spike in beverages that contain zinc and vitamin C, such as Lipton Immune Support tea. The company is therefore rolling out such products globally. It’s also aligning its innovation priorities with consumers’ emerging health-and-wellness concerns.

Similarly, packaged-food companies can encourage the habit of cooking at home. Spice manufacturer McCormick’s sales in China have sustained double-digit increases compared with 2019, even as the Chinese economy has reopened  and people go back to their workplaces. The same pattern could play out in other countries. Kraft Heinz’s innovation agenda for its international markets now prioritizes products that make home cooking pleasurable, fast, and easy—products such as sauces, dressings, and side dishes. These will be targeted at “light” and “medium” users of Kraft Heinz products.

Sustain new habits, using contextual cues

Habits can form when a consumer begins to associate a certain behavior with a particular context; eventually, that behavior can become automatic. To help turn behaviors into habits, companies should identify the contextual cues that drive the behaviors. A contextual cue can be a particular task, time of day, or object placement. For example, more consumers are keeping hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes near entryways for easy access and as a reminder to keep hands and surfaces clean. Product packaging and marketing that reinforces the put-it-by-the-door behavior can help consumers sustain the habit.

Some companies may need to identify—and create—new contextual cues. Before the COVID-19 crisis, a contextual cue for chewing-gum consumption was anticipation of a social interaction—for instance, before going to a club, while commuting to work, and after smoking. As social occasions have waned during the pandemic, a chewing-gum manufacturer must look for new contextual cues, focusing largely on solo or small-group activities, such as gaming and crafting. Gum manufacturers could consider designing packaging, flavors, and communications that reinforce those new associations.

Align messages to consumer mindsets

People across the country have felt an intensified mix of anxiety, anger, and fear because of recent events, making marketing a tricky terrain to navigate. The heightened emotions and increased polarization of the past few months could drive lasting changes in consumers’ behavior and shape their long-term preferences. Companies should therefore ensure that all their brand communications are attuned to consumer sentiment. The quality of a company’s communication  and its ability to strike the right tone will increasingly become a competitive advantage.

McKinsey’s consumer-sentiment surveys  show that consumers are paying closer attention to how companies treat their employees  during this crisis—and taking note of companies that demonstrate care and concern for people. That has implications for how brands connect with consumers and what types of messages will resonate. Hair-care brand Olaplex, for example, became one of the most mentioned hair-care brands on social media when it started an affiliate program: the company donated a portion of its proceeds from product sales to customers’ local hairstylists, helping them stay afloat during salon closures.

That said, consumers will see through—and reject—messages and actions that are performative and that seek to commercialize social issues. A brand’s communications must align with its purpose ; otherwise, the messages won’t ring true. Testing marketing messages among a diverse group of consumers, in the context in which those messages will appear, could help prevent costly missteps.

Analyze consumer beliefs and behaviors at a granular level

Consumer beliefs, habits, occasions, and emotional-need states will continue to evolve rapidly over the next year or two as the world awaits a COVID-19 vaccine. For consumer companies to stay abreast of those changes, monitoring product sales alone won’t be sufficient. Companies must also conduct primary consumer-insights work, with a focus on identifying changed behaviors and associated changed beliefs and motivators to get a comprehensive picture of the changing consumer decision journey.

Qualitative, exploratory research will have a particular role to play as a precursor to (and, in some cases, a substitute for) quantitative research. Digital data-gathering and monitoring techniques—such as mobile diaries, social-media “listening,” and artificial-intelligence-driven message boards—will be vital tools to help companies understand emerging behaviors and contextual cues. When structured well, those insights generate new thinking within an organization that can be validated through larger-scale surveys and in-market testing. Companies can then refine their product offerings and marketing messages accordingly.

In addition, granular analyses of footfall data and omnichannel sales will unearth telling details, such as which geographic regions are seeing in-person commerce rebound first and which products consumers are buying (such as smaller pack sizes to avoid sharing, activewear versus office wear, and so on). Whereas in the past, companies might have fielded high-level usage and attitude surveys and brand trackers a few times a year, it’s especially important now for companies to keep a closer eye on the evolution of consumer behavior on a weekly or monthly basis.

The COVID-19 crisis has changed people’s routines at unprecedented speed—and some of those changes will outlast the pandemic. Even in states and cities that have reopened, consumers remain cautious about resuming all of their precrisis activities. We’ve seen differences in consumer behavior across geographic markets and demographic groups, and those differences will only widen during the recovery phase, given that the health, economic, and social impact of COVID-19 isn’t uniform. Companies that develop a nuanced understanding of the changed beliefs, peak moments, and habits of their target consumer bases—and adjust their product offerings, customer experiences, and marketing communications accordingly—will be best positioned to thrive in the next normal.

Tamara Charm is a senior expert in McKinsey’s Boston office; Ravi Dhar is director of the Center for Customer Insights at the Yale School of Management; Stacey Haas is a partner in McKinsey’s Detroit office; Jennie Liu is executive director of the Yale Center for Customer Insights; Nathan Novemsky is a marketing professor at the Yale School of Management; and Warren Teichner is a senior partner in McKinsey’s New Jersey office.

This article was edited by Monica Toriello, an executive editor in the New York office.

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4.1: Habitual Decision-Making

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Learning Objectives

• Describe how a retailer can satisfy the needs of habitual decision making customers by choosing to act in ways that increase loyalty

As you read, some consumers have an extended problem solving mindset, putting a great deal of effort into their purchase decisions. Others have a limited problem solving mindset, putting in little consideration because their purchase is trivial. Still, there is another way that consumers arrive at their purchase decisions and that is routinized response behavior or by habit.

These consumers don’t think about their purchase–not because it’s of low importance or trivial, but because they have already arrived at a conclusion about which product or brand will best meet their needs. They don’t need to dedicate more thought or consideration because their needs are being met (or exceeded). From a marketers perspective, this is ideal because the investments in marketing activity has paid off in the acquisition and retention of this customer, reflected in their on-going loyalty.

Customer loyalty results when a consumer has consistent, positive experiences with a product or brand or firm over time. That is, it is on-going and reflects the breadth of value in all interactions, including in exchange, use, and experience.

Specifically, does the product or brand or firm provide value equal to or greater than what I pay for it (value in exchange)? Is the toothpaste worth the $3.49 I pay for it or more to me? Does it provide value to me in the form of the benefits I seek, when I use it (value in use)? Does the toothpaste freshen breath, whiten teeth and protect against gingivitis? And, does it provide value to me in how I experience it, which includes how I shop for and obtain it (value in experience)? Can I easily find this toothpaste where I shop in the quantities I want? Thus, customer loyalty is the result of a firm delivering customer value in all forms, meeting and exceeding consumer expectations over time.

Practice Questions

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• Habitual Decision-Making. Authored by : Patrick Williams. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution

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6.3 Types of Consumer Decisions

As you read through the stages of the decision making process, did you think “Wait a minute. I do this sometimes but not all the time”? That is indicative of the different levels of involvement within the decision making process. In this section, we will examine this difference in more detail and how it may impact the marketing strategy.

Levels of Involvement in Decision Making

As you have seen, many factors influence a consumer’s behavior. Depending on a consumer’s experience and knowledge, some consumers may be able to make quick purchase decisions and other consumers may need to get information and be more involved in the decision process before making a purchase. The  level of involvement  reflects how personally important or interested you are in consuming a product and how much information you need to make a decision. The level of involvement in buying decisions may be considered a continuum from decisions that are fairly routine (consumers are not very involved) to decisions that require extensive thought and a high level of involvement. Whether a decision is low, high, or limited, involvement varies by consumer, not by product, although some products such as purchasing a house typically require a high-involvement for all consumers. Consumers with no experience purchasing a product may have more involvement than someone who is replacing a product.

You have probably thought about many products you want or need but never did much more than that. At other times, you’ve probably looked at dozens of products, compared them, and then decided not to purchase any one of them. When you run out of products such as milk or bread that you buy on a regular basis, you may buy the product as soon as you recognize the need because you do not need to search for information or evaluate alternatives. As Nike would put it, you “just do it.” Low-involvement decisions are, however, typically products that are relatively inexpensive and pose a low risk to the buyer if they makes a mistake by purchasing them.

Consumers often engage in routine, or habitual, behavior when they make low-involvement decisions—that is, they make automatic purchase decisions based on limited information or information they have gathered in the past. For example, if you always order a Diet Coke at lunch, you’re engaging in routine response behavior. You may not even think about other drink options at lunch because your routine is to order a Diet Coke, and you simply do it. Similarly, if you run out of Diet Coke at home, you may buy more without any information search.

Some low-involvement purchases are made with no planning or previous thought. These buying decisions are called impulse buying. While you’re waiting to check out at the grocery store, perhaps you see a magazine with the latest celebrity or influencer on the cover and buy it on the spot simply because you want it. You might see a roll of tape at a check-out stand and remember you need one or you might see a bag of chips and realize you’re hungry or just want them.

By contrast, high-involvement decisions carry a higher risk to buyers if they fail, are complex, and/or have high price tags. A car, a house, and an insurance policy are examples. These items are not purchased often but are relevant and important to the buyer. Buyers don’t engage in routine response behavior when purchasing high-involvement products. Instead, consumers engage in what’s called extended problem solving where they spend a lot of time comparing different aspects such as the features of the products, prices, and warranties.

High-involvement decisions can cause buyers a great deal of cognitive (postpurchase) dissonance (anxiety) if they are unsure about their purchases or if they had a difficult time deciding between two alternatives. Companies that sell high-involvement products are aware that dissonance can be a problem. Frequently, they try to offer consumers a lot of information about their products, including why they are superior to competing brands and how they won’t let the consumer down. Salespeople may be utilized to answer questions and do a lot of customer “hand-holding.”

Allstate’s “You’re in Good Hands” advertisements are designed to convince consumers that the insurance company won’t let them down.

Mike Mozart –  Allstate,  – CC BY 2.0.

Limited problem solving falls somewhere between low-involvement (routine) and high-involvement (extended problem solving) decisions. Consumers engage in limited problem solving when they already have some information about a good or service but continue to search for a little more information. Assume you need a new backpack for a hiking trip. While you are familiar with backpacks, you know that new features and materials are available since you purchased your last backpack. You’re going to spend some time looking for one that’s decent because you don’t want it to fall apart while you’re traveling and dump everything you’ve packed on a hiking trail. You might do a little research online and come to a decision relatively quickly. You might consider the choices available at your favorite retail outlet but not look at every backpack at every outlet before making a decision. Or you might rely on the advice of a person you know who’s knowledgeable about backpacks. In some way you shorten or limit your involvement and the decision-making process.

Products, such as chewing gum, which may be low-involvement for many consumers, often use advertising such as commercials and sales promotions such as coupons to reach many consumers at once. Companies also try to sell products such as gum in as many locations as possible.  Many products that are typically high-involvement such as automobiles may use more personal selling to answer consumers’ questions. Brand names can also be very important regardless of the consumer’s level of purchasing involvement. Consider a low- versus high-involvement decision—say, purchasing a tube of toothpaste versus a new car. You might routinely buy your favorite brand of toothpaste, not thinking much about the purchase (engage in routine response behavior), but not be willing to switch to another brand either. Having a brand you like saves you “search time” and eliminates the evaluation period because you know what you’re getting.

When it comes to the car, you might engage in extensive problem solving but, again, only be willing to consider a certain brand or brands. For example, in the 1970s, American-made cars had such a poor reputation for quality that buyers joked that a car that’s “not Jap [Japanese made] is crap.” The quality of American cars is very good today, but you get the picture. If it’s a high-involvement product you’re purchasing, a good brand name is probably going to be very important to you. That’s why the manufacturers of products that are typically high-involvement decisions can’t become complacent about the value of their brands.

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Types of Consumer Decision - Explained

What types of decisions do Consumers Make?

Written by Jason Gordon

Updated at August 22nd, 2021

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Table of Contents

What are the types of consumer decisions.

Consumer decisions can be categorized into three primary types: 

• Routinized Response - This is the kind of decision where you don't really have to think much about it. 
• Limited Problem Solving - This type of purchase decision involves a little more thinking or a little more consideration. 
• Extensive Problem Solving - This is when we're making a decision to purchase and we are really going to labor over that decision. 

Each of these is discussed further below. 

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What is a Routinized Response?

This is the kind of decision where you don't really have to think much about it. That is, it's a routine. In the context of making a purchase, this is when we make the decision to purchase without going through the consumer decision-making process. Generally, it means we simply follow or repeat a previous course of action. Think of going to the store and buying the same type or brand of grocery item that you buy every week. You do this as a routine, rather than identifying alternatives and comparing them. 

What is Limited Problem Solving?

This type of purchase decision involves a little more thinking or a little more consideration. Maybe we consider different products in making our purchase. Maybe we consider how much to buy. Whatever our considerations, we're going to spend more time and effort making this decision or making this purchase. 

What is Extensive Problem Solving?  

This is when we're making a decision to purchase and we are really going to labor over that decision. That is, we are really going to consider it thoroughly. We may do a great deal of research. We may consult friends or look at customer reviews. We generally use this approach when it is something that we have never bought before, its very technical in nature,  or when it is a very expensive item (like a car). Generally, this type of decision involves the most time, information, and effort in the evaluation of alternatives.

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Module 4: Consumer Behavior

Low-involvement versus high-involvement buying decisions, learning objectives.

• Distinguish between low-involvement and high-involvement buying decisions.
• Understand what the stages of the buying process are and what happens in each stage.

As you have seen, many factors influence a consumer’s behavior. Depending on a consumer’s experience and knowledge, some consumers may be able to make quick purchase decisions and other consumers may need to get information and be more involved in the decision process before making a purchase. The level of involvement reflects how personally important or interested you are in consuming a product and how much information you need to make a decision. The level of involvement in buying decisions may be considered a continuum from decisions that are fairly routine (consumers are not very involved) to decisions that require extensive thought and a high level of involvement. Whether a decision is low, high, or limited, involvement varies by consumer, not by product, although some products such as purchasing a house typically require a high-involvement for all consumers. Consumers with no experience purchasing a product may have more involvement than someone who is replacing a product.

You have probably thought about many products you want or need but never did much more than that. At other times, you’ve probably looked at dozens of products, compared them, and then decided not to purchase any one of them. When you run out of products such as milk or bread that you buy on a regular basis, you may buy the product as soon as you recognize the need because you do not need to search for information or evaluate alternatives. As Nike would put it, you “just do it.” Low-involvement decisions are, however, typically products that are relatively inexpensive and pose a low risk to the buyer if she makes a mistake by purchasing them.

Consumers often engage in routine response behavior when they make low-involvement decisions—that is, they make automatic purchase decisions based on limited information or information they have gathered in the past. For example, if you always order a Diet Coke at lunch, you’re engaging in routine response behavior. You may not even think about other drink options at lunch because your routine is to order a Diet Coke, and you simply do it. Similarly, if you run out of Diet Coke at home, you may buy more without any information search.

Some low-involvement purchases are made with no planning or previous thought. These buying decisions are called impulse buying . While you’re waiting to check out at the grocery store, perhaps you see a magazine with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt on the cover and buy it on the spot simply because you want it. You might see a roll of tape at a check-out stand and remember you need one or you might see a bag of chips and realize you’re hungry or just want them. These are items that are typically low-involvement decisions. Low-involvement decisions aren’t necessarily products purchased on impulse, although they can be.

By contrast, high-involvement decisions carry a higher risk to buyers if they fail, are complex, and/or have high price tags. A car, a house, and an insurance policy are examples. These items are not purchased often but are relevant and important to the buyer. Buyers don’t engage in routine response behavior when purchasing high-involvement products. Instead, consumers engage in what’s called extended problem solving , where they spend a lot of time comparing different aspects such as the features of the products, prices, and warranties.

High-involvement decisions can cause buyers a great deal of postpurchase dissonance (anxiety) if they are unsure about their purchases or if they had a difficult time deciding between two alternatives. Companies that sell high-involvement products are aware that postpurchase dissonance can be a problem. Frequently, they try to offer consumers a lot of information about their products, including why they are superior to competing brands and how they won’t let the consumer down. Salespeople may be utilized to answer questions and do a lot of customer “hand-holding.”

Limited problem solving falls somewhere between low-involvement (routine) and high-involvement (extended problem solving) decisions. Consumers engage in limited problem solving when they already have some information about a good or service but continue to search for a little more information. Assume you need a new backpack for a hiking trip. While you are familiar with backpacks, you know that new features and materials are available since you purchased your last backpack. You’re going to spend some time looking for one that’s decent because you don’t want it to fall apart while you’re traveling and dump everything you’ve packed on a hiking trail. You might do a little research online and come to a decision relatively quickly. You might consider the choices available at your favorite retail outlet but not look at every backpack at every outlet before making a decision. Or you might rely on the advice of a person you know who’s knowledgeable about backpacks. In some way you shorten or limit your involvement and the decision-making process.

Products, such as chewing gum, which may be low-involvement for many consumers often use advertising such as commercials and sales promotions such as coupons to reach many consumers at once. Companies also try to sell products such as gum in as many locations as possible. Many products that are typically high-involvement such as automobiles may use more personal selling to answer consumers’ questions. Brand names can also be very important regardless of the consumer’s level of purchasing involvement. Consider a low- versus high-involvement decision—say, purchasing a tube of toothpaste versus a new car. You might routinely buy your favorite brand of toothpaste, not thinking much about the purchase (engage in routine response behavior), but not be willing to switch to another brand either. Having a brand you like saves you “search time” and eliminates the evaluation period because you know what you’re getting.

When it comes to the car, you might engage in extensive problem solving but, again, only be willing to consider a certain brand or brands. For example, in the 1970s, American-made cars had such a poor reputation for quality that buyers joked that a car that’s “not Jap [Japanese made] is crap.” The quality of American cars is very good today, but you get the picture. If it’s a high-involvement product you’re purchasing, a good brand name is probably going to be very important to you. That’s why the manufacturers of products that are typically high-involvement decisions can’t become complacent about the value of their brands.

Today, Lexus is the automotive brand that experiences the most customer loyalty. For a humorous, tongue-in-cheek look at why the brand reputation of American carmakers suffered in the 1970s, check out this clip.

Stages in the Buying Process

The figure below outlines the buying stages consumers go through. At any given time, you’re probably in a buying stage for a product or service. You’re thinking about the different types of things you want or need to eventually buy, how you are going to find the best ones at the best price, and where and how will you buy them. Meanwhile, there are other products you have already purchased that you’re evaluating. Some might be better than others. Will you discard them, and if so, how? Then what will you buy? Where does that process start?

Stage 1. Need Recognition

You plan to backpack around the country after you graduate and don’t have a particularly good backpack. You realize that you must get a new backpack. You may also be thinking about the job you’ve accepted after graduation and know that you must get a vehicle to commute. Recognizing a need may involve something as simple as running out of bread or milk or realizing that you must get a new backpack or a car after you graduate. Marketers try to show consumers how their products and services add value and help satisfy needs and wants. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Gatorade, Powerade, and other beverage makers locate their machines in gymnasiums so you see them after a long, tiring workout? Previews at movie theaters are another example. How many times have you have heard about a movie and had no interest in it—until you saw the preview? Afterward, you felt like you had to see it.

Stage 2. Search for Information

For products such as milk and bread, you may simply recognize the need, go to the store, and buy more. However, if you are purchasing a car for the first time or need a particular type of backpack, you may need to get information on different alternatives. Maybe you have owned several backpacks and know what you like and don’t like about them. Or there might be a particular brand that you’ve purchased in the past that you liked and want to purchase in the future. This is a great position for the company that owns the brand to be in—something firms strive for. Why? Because it often means you will limit your search and simply buy their brand again.

If what you already know about backpacks doesn’t provide you with enough information, you’ll probably continue to gather information from various sources. Frequently people ask friends, family, and neighbors about their experiences with products. Magazines such as Consumer Reports (considered an objective source of information on many consumer products) or Backpacker Magazine might also help you. Similar information sources are available for learning about different makes and models of cars.

Internet shopping sites such as Amazon.com have become a common source of information about products. Epinions.com is an example of consumer-generated review site. The site offers product ratings, buying tips, and price information. Amazon.com also offers product reviews written by consumers. People prefer “independent” sources such as this when they are looking for product information. However, they also often consult non-neutral sources of information, such advertisements, brochures, company Web sites, and salespeople.

Stage 3. Product Evaluation

Obviously, there are hundreds of different backpacks and cars available. It’s not possible for you to examine all of them. In fact, good salespeople and marketing professionals know that providing you with too many choices can be so overwhelming that you might not buy anything at all. Consequently, you may use choice heuristics or rules of thumb that provide mental shortcuts in the decision-making process. You may also develop evaluative criteria to help you narrow down your choices. Backpacks or cars that meet your initial criteria before the consideration will determine the set of brands you’ll consider for purchase.

Evaluative criteria are certain characteristics that are important to you such as the price of the backpack, the size, the number of compartments, and color. Some of these characteristics are more important than others. For example, the size of the backpack and the price might be more important to you than the color—unless, say, the color is hot pink and you hate pink. You must decide what criteria are most important and how well different alternatives meet the criteria.

Companies want to convince you that the evaluative criteria you are considering reflect the strengths of their products. For example, you might not have thought about the weight or durability of the backpack you want to buy. However, a backpack manufacturer such as Osprey might remind you through magazine ads, packaging information, and its Web site that you should pay attention to these features—features that happen to be key selling points of its backpacks. Automobile manufacturers may have similar models, so don’t be afraid to add criteria to help you evaluate cars in your consideration set.

Stage 4. Product Choice and Purchase

With low-involvement purchases, consumers may go from recognizing a need to purchasing the product. However, for backpacks and cars, you decide which one to purchase after you have evaluated different alternatives. In addition to which backpack or which car, you are probably also making other decisions at this stage, including where and how to purchase the backpack (or car) and on what terms. Maybe the backpack was cheaper at one store than another, but the salesperson there was rude. Or maybe you decide to order online because you’re too busy to go to the mall. Other decisions related to the purchase, particularly those related to big-ticket items, are made at this point. For example, if you’re buying a high-definition television, you might look for a store that will offer you credit or a warranty.

Stage 5. Post-purchase Use and Evaluation

At this point in the process you decide whether the backpack you purchased is everything it was cracked up to be. Hopefully it is. If it’s not, you’re likely to suffer what’s called post-purchase dissonance . You might call it buyer’s remorse . Typically, dissonance occurs when a product or service does not meet your expectations. Consumers are more likely to experience dissonance with products that are relatively expensive and that are purchased infrequently.

You want to feel good about your purchase, but you don’t. You begin to wonder whether you should have waited to get a better price, purchased something else, or gathered more information first. Consumers commonly feel this way, which is a problem for sellers. If you don’t feel good about what you’ve purchased from them, you might return the item and never purchase anything from them again. Or, worse yet, you might tell everyone you know how bad the product was.

Companies do various things to try to prevent buyer’s remorse. For smaller items, they might offer a money back guarantee or they might encourage their salespeople to tell you what a great purchase you made. How many times have you heard a salesperson say, “That outfit looks so great on you!” For larger items, companies might offer a warranty, along with instruction booklets, and a toll-free troubleshooting line to call or they might have a salesperson call you to see if you need help with product. Automobile companies may offer loaner cars when you bring your car in for service.

Companies may also try to set expectations in order to satisfy customers. Service companies such as restaurants do this frequently. Think about when the hostess tells you that your table will be ready in 30 minutes. If they seat you in 15 minutes, you are much happier than if they told you that your table would be ready in 15 minutes, but it took 30 minutes to seat you. Similarly, if a store tells you that your pants will be altered in a week and they are ready in three days, you’ll be much more satisfied than if they said your pants would be ready in three days, yet it took a week before they were ready.

Stage 6. Disposal of the Product

There was a time when neither manufacturers nor consumers thought much about how products got disposed of, so long as people bought them. But that’s changed. How products are being disposed of is becoming extremely important to consumers and society in general. Computers and batteries, which leech chemicals into landfills, are a huge problem. Consumers don’t want to degrade the environment if they don’t have to, and companies are becoming more aware of this fact.

Take for example Crystal Light, a water-based beverage that’s sold in grocery stores. You can buy it in a bottle. However, many people buy a concentrated form of it, put it in reusable pitchers or bottles, and add water. That way, they don’t have to buy and dispose of plastic bottle after plastic bottle, damaging the environment in the process. Windex has done something similar with its window cleaner. Instead of buying new bottles of it all the time, you can purchase a concentrate and add water. You have probably noticed that most grocery stores now sell cloth bags consumers can reuse instead of continually using and discarding of new plastic or paper bags.

Other companies are less concerned about conservation than they are about planned obsolescence . Planned obsolescence is a deliberate effort by companies to make their products obsolete, or unusable, after a period of time. The goal is to improve a company’s sales by reducing the amount of time between the repeat purchases consumers make of products. When a software developer introduces a new version of product, it is usually designed to be incompatible with older versions of it. For example, not all the formatting features are the same in Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010. Sometimes documents do not translate properly when opened in the newer version. Consequently, you will be more inclined to upgrade to the new version so you can open all Word documents you receive.

Products that are disposable are another way in which firms have managed to reduce the amount of time between purchases. Disposable lighters are an example. Do you know anyone today that owns a nondisposable lighter? Believe it or not, prior to the 1960s, scarcely anyone could have imagined using a cheap disposable lighter. There are many more disposable products today than there were in years past—including everything from bottled water and individually wrapped snacks to single-use eye drops and cell phones.

Key Takeaways

Consumer behavior looks at the many reasons why people buy things and later dispose of them. Consumers go through distinct buying phases when they purchase products: (1) realizing the need or wanting something, (2) searching for information about the item, (3) evaluating different products, (4) choosing a product and purchasing it, (5) using and evaluating the product after the purchase, and (6) disposing of the product. A consumer’s level of involvement is how interested he or she is in buying and consuming a product. Low-involvement products are usually inexpensive and pose a low risk to the buyer if he or she makes a mistake by purchasing them. High-involvement products carry a high risk to the buyer if they fail, are complex, or have high price tags. Limited-involvement products fall somewhere in between.

Review Questions

• How do low-involvement decisions differ from high-involvement decisions in terms of relevance, price, frequency, and the risks their buyers face? Name some products in each category that you’ve recently purchased.
• What stages do people go through in the buying process for high-involvement decisions? How do the stages vary for low-involvement decisions?
• What is postpurchase dissonance and what can companies do to reduce it?
• Provided by : Lumen Learning. Located at : http://lumenlearning.com . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Marketing Principles. Authored by : Anonymous. Located at : http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/marketing-principles-v2.0/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• 1970s American Cars Damning Review. Authored by : Top Gear. Located at : http://youtu.be/pjzpx_jUUA0 . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Standard YouTube License

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Consumer Behavior - Decision Making

An understanding of consumer behavior is necessary for the long-term success and survival of a firm. Consumer decision making is viewed as the edifice of the marketing concept, an important orientation in marketing management.

The marketer should be able to determine needs and wants of the target segment and provide product and service offerings more effectively and efficiently than competitors.

Types of Consumer Decision Making

The following are the types of decision making methods which can be used to analyze consumer behavior −

Extensive Problem Solving

In extensive decision making, the consumers have no established or set criteria for evaluating a product in a particular category. Here the consumers have not narrowed the number of brands from which they would like to consider and so their decision making efforts can be classified as extensive problem solving. In this particular set of problem solving phase, the consumer needs a lot of information to set a criteria on the basis of specific brands could be judged.

Limited Problem Solving

In limited problem solving, the consumers have already set the basic criteria or standard for evaluating the products. However, they have not fully set the established preferences and they search for additional information to discriminate among other products or brands.

Routinized Response Behavior

Here, in routinized response behavior, consumers have experience with the product and they have set the criteria for which they tend to evaluate the brands they are considering. In some situations, they may want to collect a small amount of additional information, while in others they may simply review what they are aware about. In extensive problem solving, consumer seeks for more information to make a choice, in limited problem solving consumers have the basic idea or the criteria set for evaluation, whereas in routinized response behavior consumers need only little additional information.

Views of Consumer Decision Making

An economic view.

Consumers have generally been assumed to make rational decisions. The economic view of consumer decision making is being criticized by researchers because a consumer is assumed to posses the following traits to behave rationally −

Firstly, they need to be aware of all the alternatives present in the market

Secondly, they must be able to efficiently rank the products as per their benefits.

Lastly, they must also know the best alternative that suits them as per their requirements.

In the world of perfect competition, consumers rarely have all the information to make the so called ‘perfect decision.’

A Passive View

Passive view is totally opposite to the economic view. Here, it is assumed that consumers are impulsive and irrational while making a purchase. The main limitation of this view is that consumers also seek information about the alternatives available and make rational or wise decisions and purchase the products or services that provides the greatest satisfaction.

A Cognitive View

The cognitive model helps individuals to focus on the processes through which they can get information about selected brands. In the framework of cognitive view, the consumer very actively searches for such products or services that can fulfill all their requirements.

An Emotional View

Consumers are associated with deep feelings or emotions such as, fear, love, hope etc. These emotions are likely to be highly involving.

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BUYER BEHAVIOR AS PROBLEM SOLVING

Consumer behavior refers to buyers who are purchasing for personal, family, or group use. Consumer behavior can be thought of as the combination of efforts and results related to the consumer's need to solve problems. Consumer problem solving is triggered by the identification of some unmet need. A family consumes all of the milk in the house or the tires on the family care wear out or the bowling team is planning an end-of-the-season picnic. This presents the person with a problem which must be solved. Problems can be viewed in terms of two types of needs: physical (such as a need for food) or psychological (for example, the need to be accepted by others).

Although the difference is a subtle one, there is some benefit in distinguishing between needs and wants. A need is a basic deficiency given a particular essential item. You need food, air, security, and so forth. A want is placing certain personal criteria as to how that need must be fulfilled. Therefore, when we are hungry, we often have a specific food item in mind. Consequently, a teenager will lament to a frustrated parent that there is nothing to eat, standing in front of a full refrigerator. Most of marketing is in the want-fulfilling business, not the need-fulfilling business. Timex does not want you to buy just any watch, they want you to want a Timex brand watch. Likewise, Ralph Lauren wants you to want Polo when you shop for clothes. On the other hand, the American Cancer Association would like you to feel a need for a check-up and does not care which doctor you go to. In the end, however, marketing is mostly interested in creating and satisfying wants.

• The Decision Process
• Influencing Factors of Consumer Behavior
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• BALANCED COVERAGE
• INTERNATIONAL AND TECHNOLOGY COVERAGE
• CURRENT EXAMPLES FROM ALL TYPES AND SIZES OF BUSINESS
• A CLEAR, EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATION
• HELPFUL PEDAGOGY
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• ELVIS-ALIVE AND WELL
• INTRODUCTION
• Defining Marketing Newsline: Picture your mission
• Justification for Study Review
• Consumer Content
• Company Capabilities
• Communication
• Competition Integrated marketing
• Cross-Functional Contact
• Community Contact
• Macromarketing Versus Micromarketing
• Service Marketing Versus Goods Marketing
• For-profit Marketing Versus Nonprofit Marketing
• Mass Marketing, Direct Marketing, and Internet Marketing
• Local, Regional, National, International, and Global Marketers
• Consumer Goods Marketing and Business-to-Business (Industrial) Marketing Review
• Functional-Level Considerations
• The Marketing Plan
• The Marketing Mix
• Evaluating Results
• KEYS TO MARKETING SUCCESS Review The Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) Questions
• THE HOG IS ALIVE AND WELL
• THE WEB SEGMENT
• The Market Is People
• The Market Is a Place
• The Market Is an Economic Entity
• Consumer Markets
• Industrial Markets
• Institutional Markets
• Reseller Markets
• The Undifferentiated Market (Market Aggregation)
• Product Differentiation
• Segmentation Strategies Review
• Bases of Segmentation
• Segmenting Ultimate Consumers Integrated marketing
• Single-base and Multi-base Segmentation
• Qualifying Customers in Market Segments
• The Concept of Positioning
• The Future of the Marketplace Review The Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) Questions
• ROLLING ROCK FINDS ITS NICHE
• DISCOVERING WHY THEY CHEW
• THE NATURE AND IMPORTANCE OF MARKETING RESEARCH
• WHAT NEEDS RESEARCHING IN MARKETING? Newsline: How execs use research Review
• Determining the Purpose and Scope of the Research
• The Informal Assessment
• Choosing the Approach
• Determining the Types of Data Needed
• Locating the Sources of Data
• Choosing the Method of Collecting Data Newsline: Where's the beef?
• Selecting the Sample
• Anticipating the Results/Making the Report
• CONDUCTING THE RESEARCH
• PROCESSING THE DATA
• THE VALUE OF MARKETING RESEARCH Integrated marketing The Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) Questions Review
• RESEARCH SAVES THE DAY AT CASE
• TILL DEATH DO US PART
• BUYER BEHAVIOR AND EXCHANGE
• Need Identification
• Information Search and Processing Integrated marketing
• Information Processing
• Identification and Evaluation of Alternatives
• Product/Service/Outlet Selection
• The Purchase Decision Newsline: Follow the consumer and see what happens
• Postpurchase Behavior Review
• Buying Task
• Market Offerings
• Demographic Influences
• Social Class
• Reference Groups
• Learning and Socialization
• Lifestyle Review
• Characteristics of Organizational Buying
• Stages in Organizational Buying Newsline: The future of the consumer Review The Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) Questions
• CUSTOMER SATISFACTION STILL MATTERS
• THE CAR INDUSTRY AND TECHNOLOGY
• External Surprises
• Competitors
• Product Liability
• Deregulation
• Consumer Protection
• Consumer Buying Power Newsline: Everyone seems to have money
• Technology Integrated marketing
• Demographic Changes
• The Baby Boom
• Generation X
• The Baby Boomlet
• Cultures and Subcultures Review
• Understanding Other Cultures Around the World
• Forecasts of the Future The Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) Questions
• CASE APPLICATION
• GOOD LUCK GETTING INTO CHINA
• DEFINING INTERNATIONAL MARKETING
• STANDARDIZATION AND CUSTOMIZATION
• REASONS FOR ENTERING INTERNATIONAL MARKETS
• REASONS TO AVOID INTERNATIONAL MARKETS
• Joint Ventures
• Direct Investment
• US Commercial Centers Review
• Trade Intermediaries
• The Corporate Level
• The Business Level
• The Functional Level
• Product/Promotion
• Distribution and Logistics Review
• Customs and Taboos
• Business Norms Integrated marketing
• Religious Beliefs
• Political Stability
• Monetary Circumstances
• Trading Blocs and Agreements
• Expropriation
• The Technological Environment
• The Economic Environment
• Marketing Objectives The Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) Questions
• UNILEVER'S GLOBAL BRAND
• JAPANESE CARS ON THE DECLINE
• DEFINING THE PRODUCT
• Classification of Consumer Goods
• Classification of Industrial Goods
• Simultaneous Production and Consumption
• Little Standardization
• High Buyer Involvement
• The Determination of Product Objectives
• The Product Lifecycle
• Approaches to the Market
• Product Features
• Related Services
• Product Mix Strategies
• Product Line Decisions
• Product Deletion Integrated marketing
• The Consumer's Viewpoint
• The Firm's Viewpoint
• Internal Sources
• External Sources
• Step 1: Generating New Product Ideas Newsline: New ideas are rare
• Step 2: Screening Product Development Ideas
• Step 3: Business Analysis
• Step 4: Technical and Marketing Development
• Step 5: Manufacturing Planning
• Step 6: Marketing Planning
• Step 7: Test Marketing Integrated marketing
• Step 8: Commercialization Review The Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) Questions
• HERSHEY CHOCOLATE MILK
• AMERICAN EXPRESS: COMMUNICATING BIG IDEAS
• Primary Tasks Integrated marketing
• Integrated Marketing Communication
• THE MEANING OF MARKETING COMMUNICATION
• THE OBJECTIVES OF MARKETING COMMUNICATION
• Interpersonal Communication Systems
• Organizational Communication Systems
• Public Communication Systems
• Mass Communication Systems
• Marketing Communications
• The Promotion Mix
• The Campaign Review
• The Advertising Department
• The Advertising Agency
• Developing the Creative Strategy
• Stating Media Objectives
• Evaluating Media
• Selection and Implementation
• Determining the Media Budget
• Banner Advertisements
• Types of Sales Promotion
• Public Relation's Publics
• Public Relations Techniques Review
• Inside Versus Outside Selling
• Company Salespeople Versus Manufacturer Representatives
• Direct Versus Indirect Selling
• The Selling Process Review
• Strengths and Weaknesses of Personal Selling
• The Sales Force of the Future Newsline: New toys for sales success? The Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) Questions
• THE MICRORECORDER
• THE MCDONALD'S EFFECT
• The Customer's View of Price
• Rational Man Pricing: An Economic Perspective
• Irrational Man Pricing: Freedom Rules
• The Marketer's View of Price
• PRICING OBJECTIVES Review
• Nonprice Competition
• Pricing to Meet Competition
• Pricing Above Competitors
• Pricing Below Competitors
• New Product Pricing Newsline: The risk of free PCs
• PRICE LINES
• Discounts and Allowances Integrated marketing
• PRICE BUNDLING
• PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PRICING Review
• Cost-Oriented Pricing: Cost-Plus and Mark-Ups
• Break-Even Analysis
• Target Rates of Return
• Demand-Oriented Pricing
• Value-Based Pricing Review
• The Future of Pricing The Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) Questions
• UNITED TECHTRONICS
• SAM SIGHTINGS ARE EVERYWHERE
• THE DUAL FUNCTIONS OF CHANNELS
• THE EVOLUTION OF THE MARKETING CHANNEL
• FLOWS IN MARKETING CHANNELS
• FUNCTIONS OF THE CHANNEL
• Producer and Manufacturer
• Department Stores
• Chain Stores
• Supermarkets
• Discount Houses
• Warehouse Retailing
• Planned Shopping Centers/Malls Newsline: The mall: a thing of the past?
• Nonstore Retailing Integrated marketing
• Functions of the Wholesaler
• Types of Wholesalers
• Physical Distribution Review
• Conventional Channels
• Administered VMS
• Contractual VMS
• Corporate VMS
• Horizontal Channel Systems
• Analyze the Consumer
• Establish the Channel Objectives
• Specify Distribution Tasks
• Number of Levels
• Intensity at Each Level
• Types of Intermediaries
• Who Should Lead
• Correcting or Modifying the Channel
• Power Review The Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) Questions
• CONNECTING CHANNEL MEMBERS
• Photo Credits

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