What is consumer behaviour?
A consumer is a person who uses a product or service. A customer (buyer) is the one who pays. A parent buying a toy is the customer; the child is the consumer. A user of a public service (a library, a bus) is also studied.
Consumer behaviour studies how people decide what to buy, when, where and why. Firms study it to design better products, set prices and win against competitors.
The buying decision process
- Need recognition: you notice a gap (hungry, phone broken).
- Information search: ads, friends, shop visits, online reviews.
- Evaluation of alternatives: compare price, quality, brand, features.
- Purchase decision: what, where, how to pay.
- Post-purchase behaviour: satisfied (buy again, recommend) or regret (return, complain, bad review).
For cheap, routine buys (bread, a pen) we skip steps. For big, risky buys (a bike, a laptop) we go through all five carefully.
Needs, motives, brakes and attitudes
A need is something we must have (food, safety); a want is a particular way to meet it (a pizza). Maslow's idea: basic needs first, then safety, belonging, esteem and self-growth.
- Motives (push to buy): meeting a need, pleasure (hedonic), showing status or identity, helping others or the planet (ethical buying).
- Brakes (stop buying): high price, fear of risk (will it work? is it safe?), habit and loyalty to another brand, lack of information.
- Attitude: how much we like or dislike a brand. It is shaped by what we know, what we feel and what we have done before.
Firms strengthen motives (advertising, free samples, influencers) and weaken brakes (warranty, free returns, instalments, trust badges).
Factors that influence buyers
- Personal: age, job, income, lifestyle, stage of life.
- Psychological: motivation, perception (how we see the product), learning, beliefs and attitudes.
- Social: family, friends, reference groups, opinion leaders and influencers, our role in a group.
- Cultural: values, religion, region, festivals, social class.
Marketing also shapes behaviour and competition: brands fight for attention with price offers, packaging, product features and ads. Strong branding can make buyers less sensitive to price.
Building a consumer profile
- Collect data: surveys, sales records, loyalty cards, website and app data, social media.
- Segment: group buyers by demographics (age, gender, income), geography (city, climate), psychographics (lifestyle, values) and behaviour (how often, how loyal).
- Describe the typical buyer of a segment: a short persona with a name, age, needs and habits.
- Target: design products, prices, places and messages for that profile.
Example: a sports drink profile might be "18–30, plays sport 3+ times a week, city, health-conscious, shops online".
Digital: customer relationships, traces and e-government
- Digital customer relationship: apps, emails, chatbots, loyalty programmes and personal offers keep contact with each customer (CRM).
- Digital traces: searches, clicks, likes, location and purchases leave data. Algorithms use it to recommend products and target ads.
- Social networks: reviews, ratings, influencers and user posts strongly affect choices; buyers often trust other buyers more than ads.
- E-government: public services online, such as paying taxes, booking tickets, getting certificates or ID, which saves time.
Benefits: speed, convenience, personal service, two-way contact. Risks: loss of privacy, data leaks, fake reviews, people without internet left out. Many countries have data-protection laws that give users rights over their data.
Experience, perceived value and satisfaction
Customer experience is everything the buyer feels at every contact: the ad, the shop, the website, the delivery, the help after.
Perceived value = benefits the customer feels (use, pleasure, status) − sacrifices (price, time, effort, risk). It is personal: two buyers can value the same thing differently.
Satisfaction compares experience with expectation: below expectation = disappointed; equal = satisfied; above = delighted. Delighted customers become loyal and recommend.
Experiential marketing sells memories and feelings: a café designed for photos, test drives, theme stores, live events.
Key formulas and definitions
- Buying process: need → search → evaluate → buy → post-purchase
- Perceived value = perceived benefits − perceived costs (price, time, effort, risk)
- Satisfaction: experience vs expectation (below = disappointed, equal = satisfied, above = delighted)
- Motives push buying; brakes hold it back
- Influences: personal, psychological, social, cultural
Worked examples
1. Arrange Maya's laptop purchase in the five stages: reads reviews; buys online; old laptop crashes; writes a 5-star review; compares 3 models.
Old laptop crashes (need) → reads reviews (search) → compares 3 models (evaluate) → buys online (purchase) → writes a 5-star review (post-purchase).
2. A family buys an electric scooter. Name one motive and one brake, and one way the seller can remove the brake.
Motive: saving fuel money or caring for the environment. Brake: fear the battery will fail. Remove it with a long battery warranty or a free test ride.
3. A customer expects 8/10 from a hotel and experiences 6/10. Predict their behaviour.
Experience is below expectation, so they are disappointed. They may complain, write a poor review and not return.
4. Write a short consumer profile for a budget backpack brand.
Students aged 14–22, in cities and towns, low to middle income, carry books and a laptop daily, want strong and cheap bags, buy online during sales, influenced by friends and reviews.
Common mistakes
- Thinking the customer and the consumer are always the same person (a parent buys, a child uses).
- Believing every purchase goes through all five stages. Cheap routine buys skip most of them.
- Treating perceived value as just the price. It is benefits minus all costs, as the buyer sees them.
- Thinking satisfaction depends only on product quality. It depends on quality compared with what was expected.