The Black Box Model.

A model used in the study of the buying behavior of consumers and the buyer’s decision process, the model assumes that what takes place in the consumer's "black box" (consumer's mind) can be concluded from a study of observed stimuli and responses. Thus the black box model can be discussed in two parts i.e. first the Characteristics affecting consumer behavior and secondly the Buyer’s decision process.

Characteristics Affecting Consumer Behavior.

The purchase of any product by a consumer is influenced by many factors including Cultural, Social, Personal and Psychological factors. The marketers need to take into account these factors to sell any product in the market and they should design products such that all the factors favor the product. Now we shall discuss each of the factors: -

Cultural factors.

Cultural factors have a significant impact on customer behavior. Marketer needs to understand the role played by the buyer’s culture, subculture and social class.

Culture: Culture is the most basic cause of a person’s wants and behavior. Growing up, children learn basic values, perception and wants from the family and other important groups. Every society, group has cultural values and these values differ greatly from country to country and the buy products accordingly.

Sub-Culture: Each culture contains “sub-cultures” groups of people with shared values. For example, the “youth culture” or “club culture” has quite distinct values and buying characteristics from the much older “gray generation”

Social Class: Virtually all human societies show signs of social stratification. Stratification some times takes form of a caste system where the members of different castes are reared for certain roles and cannot change their cast membership.

Social Classes are relatively homogeneous and enduring divisions in a society, which are hierarchically ordered and whose members share similar values, interests and behavior.

Social classes do not reflect income alone but also other factors such as occupation, education, and area of residence. Social classes differ in dress, speech and many other characteristics

Social Factor:

A customer’s buying behavior is also influenced by social factors, such as the groups to which the customer belongs and social status.

Reference groups: People whose norms and values influence a consumer’s behavior

Associative – a group with which people may want to identify

Disassociative – a group with which people do not want to identify

Family group: This forms a household, the standard unit of purchase and consumption. The family unit is usually considered to be the most important “buying” organization in society. It has been researched extensively. Marketers are particularly interested ...

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Social Factor:

A customer’s buying behavior is also influenced by social factors, such as the groups to which the customer belongs and social status.

Reference groups: People whose norms and values influence a consumer’s behavior

Associative – a group with which people may want to identify

Disassociative – a group with which people do not want to identify

Family group: This forms a household, the standard unit of purchase and consumption. The family unit is usually considered to be the most important “buying” organization in society. It has been researched extensively. Marketers are particularly interested in the roles and relative influence of the husband, wife and children on the purchase of a large variety of products and services.

Personal Factors:

A buyer’s decisions are also influenced by personal characteristics such as the buyer’s age and life-cycle stage, occupation, economic situation, life style, and personality and self-concept.

Age and Life-Cycle State: People change the goods and services they buy over their lifetimes. Buying is also shaped by the stage of the family life cycle-the stages through which families might pass as they mature over time. Marketers often define their target markets in terms of life-cycle stage and develop appropriate products and marketing plans.

Occupation: A person’s occupation affects the goods and services bought. Marketers try to identify the occupational groups that have an above-average interest in their products and services. A company can even specialize in making products needed by a given occupational group.

Economic Situation: A person’s economic situation will greatly affect product choice. Marketers of income-sensitive goods closely watch trends in personal income, savings, and interest rates. If economic indicators point to a recession, marketers can take steps to redesign, reposition, and reprice their products.

Life Style: People coming from the same subculture, social class, and even occupation may have quite different life styles. Life style is a person’s pattern of living as expressed in his or her activities, interests, and opinions. Life style captures something more than the person’s social class or personality. The life-style concept, when used carefully, can help the marketer gain an understanding of changing consumer values and how they affect buying behavior.

Personality and Self-Concept: Each person’s distinct personality will influence his or her buying behavior. Personality refers to the unique psychological characteristics that lead to relatively consistent and lasting responses to one’s own environment. Many marketers use a concept related to personality-a person’s self-concept.

Psychological Factors:

A person’s buying choices are also influenced by four major psychological factors: - motivation, perception, learning, and beliefs and attitudes.

Motivation: A person has many needs at any given time. Some needs are biological, arising from states of tension such as hunger, thirst, or discomfort. Other needs are psychological, arising from the need for recognition, esteem, or belonging. Most of these needs will not be strong enough to motivate the person to act at a given point in time. A need becomes a motive when it is provoked to a sufficient lever of intensity. A motive is a need that is sufficiently pressing to direct the person to seek pleasure.

Perception: A motivated person is ready to act. How the person acts is influenced by his or her perception of the situation. Two people with the same motivation and in the same situation may act quite differently because they see the situation differently. Perception is the process by which people select, organize, and understand information to form a meaningful picture of the world.

Learning: When people act, they learn. Learning describes changes in an individual’s behavior arising from experience. The practical significance of learning theory of marketers is that they can build demand for a product by associating it with strong drives, using motivating indications, and to the same drives as competitors and providing similar cues because buyers are more likely to transfer loyalty to similar brands then to dissimilar ones.

Beliefs and Attitudes: Through acting and learning, people acquire their beliefs and attitudes. These in turn influence their buying behavior. A belief is a descriptive thought that a person has about something. Marketers are interested in the beliefs that people formulate about specific products and services. If some of the beliefs are wrong and prevent purchase, the marketer will want to launch a campaign to correct them.

The Buying Decision Process.

Buying decision process of a consumer has the following five stages: -

Problem Recognition

This is the stage where the buying process starts, where the buyer recognizes a need. This need can be triggered by internal or external stimuli.

Information Search

At this stage the buyer goes in search of information as to how he/she can fulfill the needs. The buyer might get anxious about the product and may look for advertisements and go about asking friends about it

Evaluation of Alternatives

After gathering information about different brand of a similar product the buyer tries to evaluate the brand, which has more benefits and is economical.

Purchase Decision

The stage of decision process in which the consumer actually buys the product. This is the time when the consumer makes a decision whether to buy an economical good or a quality product

Post purchase behavior

The decision process doesn’t end after the purchase. After purchasing the customer make a perception about a brand based on the satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

Characteristics that influence the Consumer Buying Behavior and the buying behavior of given products.

Mobile Phone: - In buying a mobile phone the buying behavior of a customer is Complex as high involvement and significant difference between brands exists. The characteristics affecting consumer behavior in this product are mostly Personal as buying a mobile phone depicts the lifestyle, personality and also economic situation is important.

Clothes: - Characteristics affecting consumer behavior for clothes include Cultural and Personal factors as buyers of different age, culture, and personality wear different clothes and a variety-seeking buying behavior is observed.

Music System: - In buying a music system the buying behavior of a customer is Complex as high involvement and significant difference between brands survive. The characteristics affecting consumer behavior in this product are mostly Personal as well as Psychological as buying a music system depicts the lifestyle, personality, economic situation and also Beliefs and Attitudes are important.

A Car: - Characteristics affecting consumer behavior in buying a car includes Social, Personal, and Psychological Factors as economic factors, beliefs, and also family members exert strong influence on buying decision. A complex buying behavior is observed here.

A House: - In Buying a house Cultural, Family and Economical factors affect consumer behavior and a Dissonance-Reducing buying behavior is found.

Chocolates: - Buying chocolates has a variety-seeking buying behavior as low consumer involvement and significant brand differences exist. The characteristics affecting buying behavior of chocolates include Cultural and Personal.

Bathing Soap: - Characteristics affecting consumer behavior in buying a bathing soap includes more of personal factors and possesses a Habitual Buying Behavior

Conclusion.

Markets must be understood before marketing strategies can be developed. Consumers vary tremendously in age, income, education, tastes and other factors. Marketers must understand how consumers transform marketing and other inputs into buying responses. Consumer behavior is influenced by the buyer’s characteristics and by the buyer’s decision process. Buyer characteristics include four major factors: cultural, social, personal, and psychological.