1. Initial Terms
    1. Buying behavior - the decision processes and actions of people involved in buying and using products
    2. Consumer buying behavior - the decision processes and purchasing activities of people who purchase products for personal or household use and not for business purposes
  2. Level of Involvement & Consumer Problem-Solving Processes
    1. Level of involvement - an individual's degree of interest in a product and the importance of the product for that person
    2. Involvement level affects a person's selection of three types of consumer problem solving:
      1. Countinized response - used when buying frequently purchased, low-cost items that require very little search and decision effort
      2. Limited problem solving - used when purchasing products occasionally or needing information about an unfamiliar brand in a familiar product category
      3. Extended problem solving - used when purchasing unfamiliar, expensive or infrequently bought products
  3. Consumer Buying Decision Process
    1. Consumer buying decision process - A 5 stage purchase decision process that includes problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase, and past purchase evaluation
    2. Problem Recognition
      1. Awareness of a difference between a desired state and an actual condition
      2. Marketers use sales personnel, advertising, and packaging to help trigger recognition of such needs or problems
    3. Information Search
      1. Internal search -buyers search their memories for information about products that might solve their problems
      2. External search - buyers seek information from sources other than their memories
    4. Evaluation of Alternatives
      1. Considered set - a group of brands within a product category that a buyer views as alternatives for possible purchase
      2. Evaluative criteria - objective and subjective product characteristics that are important to a buyer
        1. Framing - describing alternatives and attributes in a certain manner
    5. Purchase
      1. Based on the outcome of the evaluation stage
      2. Not only choice of product but also choice of seller
    6. Post-Purchase Evaluation
      1. Cognitive dissonance -a buyer's doubts shortly after the purchase about whether or not the product was the right choice; buyer's remorse
  4. Situational Influences on the Buying Decision Process
    1. Situational influences - influences that result from circumstances, time, and location that affect the consumer buying decision process
      1. Physical surroundings, social surroundings, time perspective, reason for purchase, mood and condition
  5. Psychological Influences on the Buying Decision Process
    1. Psychological influences - factors that in part determine people's general behavior, which influences their behavior as a consumer
    2. Perception
      1. Perception - the process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting information inputs to produce meaning
      2. Information inputs - sensations received through sight, taste, hearing, smell, and touch
      3. Selective exposure - process by which some inputs are selected the reach awareness and others are not
      4. Selective distortion - an individual's changing or twisting of information that is inconsistent with personal beliefs or feelings
      5. Selective retention - remembering information inputs that support personal feelings and beliefs and forgets inputs that do not
      6. Information is not received in an organized form
        1. Closure occurs when a person mentally fills in missing elements in a pattern or statement
          1. Commonly used in advertising as incomplete images, sounds, or phrases
      7. Interpreting is the assignment of meaning based on what is expected or familiar
        1. Marketers try to influence buyer perception through information but there are problems:
          1. A consumer's perceptual process may operate such that a seller's information never reaches the person
          2. A buyer may perceive it differently than intended
          3. A buyer may find the information inconsistent with their beliefs and forget the information
    3. Motives
      1. Motives - an internal, energizing force that directs a person's behavior toward satisfying needs or achieving goals
        1. Buyers' actions are based on a set of motives, not a single motive
      2. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - the five levels of needs that humans seek to satisfy from most to least important
        1. Psychological needs - requirements for survival
          1. Food, water, sex, clothing & shelter
        2. Safety needs - security and freedom from physical and emotional pain and suffering
          1. Life insurance, air bags, vitamins, etc
        3. Social needs - the human requirement for love, affection, and a sense of belonging
          1. Beauty products, brand name items
        4. Esteem needs - requirement for respect and recognition from others as well as self-esteem
          1. High brand or high price items
        5. Self-actualization needs - need to grow and develop, and to become all one is capable of becoming
          1. Memberships, educations, lessons
      3. Patronage motives - motives that influence where a person purchases on a regular basis
    4. Learning
      1. Learning - refers to changes in a person's thought processes and behaviors caused by information and experience
    5. Attitudes
      1. Attitudes - an individual's enduring evaluation of feeling about and behavioral tendencies toward an object or idea
      2. Consists of 3 major components:
        1. Cognitive - the person's knowledge and information about the object or idea
        2. Affective - the person's feelings and emotions about the object or idea
        3. Behavioral - manifests itself in the person's actions toward the object or idea
      3. Attitude scales - a means of measuring consumer attitudes by gauging the intensity of individual's reactions to adjectives, phrases, or sentences about an object
    6. Personality and Self
      1. Personality - a set of internal traits and distinct behavioral tendencies that result in consistent patterns of behavior in certain situations
        1. Marketers focus on positively valued personality characteristics such as security consciousness, sociability, independence or competitiveness rather than negatively valued ones such as insensitivity or timidity
      2. Self-concept - self-image; a perception or view of oneself
    7. Lifestyles
      1. Lifestyle- an individual's pattern of living expressed through activities, interests, and opinions
        1. Way time is spent, extent of social interaction, general outlook on life and living, personality, age, education, income, and social class
      2. 8 basic groups

Have high resources and high innovation


Primary Motives


Have low resources and low innovation


  1. Social Influences on the Buying Decision Process
    1. Role - actions and activities that a person in a particular position is supposed to perform based on expectations of the individual and surrounding persons
    2. Family Influences
      1. Consumer socialization - the process through which a person acquires the knowledge and skills to function as a consumer
        1. Children gain this through their parents
      2. Family decision making processes go into 4 categories:

Decision Type
Decision Maker
Types of Products
Husband Dominant
Male head of house
Lawn equipment, appliances, tools, stereo equipment
Wife Dominant
Female head of house
Her & kids clothes, groceries, kitchen and bathroom needs, decorations
Equally by either, not by both
His clothes, luggage, games, sports equipment, cameras
Join decision
Vacations, televisions, furniture, financial planning, vehicles

  1. Gatekeeper is the household member who collects and controls information
  2. Reference Groups
    1. Reference group - a group that a person identifies with so strongly that they adopt the values, attitudes, and behaviors of the group members.
      1. Families, colleagues, Greek life, civic or professional organizations, church groups
    2. Three types:
      1. Membership - an individual actually belongs
      2. Aspirational - a group to which an individual aspires to belong in
      3. Dissasociative - a group that a person does not want to be associated with
    3. May serve as a person's point of comparison and source of information
    4. The extent to which a reference group affects a purchase decision depends on the product's conspicuousness and the susceptibility to reference group influence
      1. Conspicuousness is determined by whether others can see it and if it attracts attention
  3. Opinion Leaders
    1. Opinion leader - a member of an informal group who provides information about a specific topic to other group members

Possible topic
Charities, political ideas, lifestyle choices
Sorority President
Clothes, shoes, hair styles, nail salons
Movie Buff Friend
Movies or shows to watch, rent or buy
Health products, medication, vitamins
Techie Friend
Computers, software, internet, video games

  1. Digital Networks
    1. Blogs - web-based journals in which people can editorialize and interact with other Internet users
    2. Wikis - software that creates an interface that enables users to add or edit content
    3. Social networks - web-based services that allow members to share personal profiles that include blogs, pictures, audio, and video
  2. Social Class
    1. Social class- an open group of individuals with similar social rank
      1. Occupation, education, income, wealth, race, ethnic group, and possessions
      2. Have predictable buying patterns
      3. Middle and working class are largest
  3. Culture and Subculture
    1. Culture - the accumulation of values, knowledge, beliefs, customs, objects, and concepts of society
      1. Determines product purchases
    2. Subculture - a group of individuals whose characteristics, values, and behavioral patterns are similar within the group and different from those in the surrounding culture
      1. African-American Subculture
        1. 12.4% of the population
        2. $1.1 trillion in buying power by 2012
      2. Hispanic Subculture
        1. 15% of the population
        2. $1.2 trillion in buying power by 2012
      3. Asian-American Subculture
        1. 4.4% of the population
        2. $670 billion in buying power by 2012