I) What is consumer behaviour ?

Consumer behavior is a new field of study which evolved just after the Second World War. The seller’s market has disappeared and buyers market has come up. This led to paradigm shift of the manufacturer’s attention from product to consumer and specially focused on the consumer behavior.
The evaluation of marketing concept from mere selling concept to consumer oriented marketing has resulted in buyer behavior becoming an independent discipline.

Hence marketers felt the need to obtain an in-depth knowledge of consumers buying behavior. Finally this knowledge acted as an imperative tool in the hands of marketers to forecast the future buying behavior of customers and devise four marketing strategies in order to create long term customer relationship.

The heterogeneity among people makes understanding consumer behavior a challenging task to marketers. Since every person in the world is different, it is impossible to have simple rules that explain how buying decisions are made.

1) Consumer VS Customer

Whether it is consumer or industrial markets that are being considered, there is a distinction between consumers and buyers. Whereas buyers actually make the purchase, it is consumers who use the product. Marketers need to be aware of this and to decide whom they wish to target.

The consumer is the end user of a product and therefore, not necessarily the same person as the customer –the person who buys.

It should be pointed out that the one who does the buying is not necessarily the user of what is bought and that others may be involved in the buying decision in addition to the actual buyer.

Example: The difference can best be explained by examples rather than by description of the difference itself. As a customer I go to a shop and buy sweets, which are consumed by children. The children are the consumers and I the customer.

In planning for a family vacation the mother may make the hotel reservations but