Introduction
Consumer behaviour is the study of when, why, how, and where people do or do not buy products. It
blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology and economics. It attempts to
understand the buyer decision making process, both individually and in groups. It studies
characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics and behavioural variables in an
attempt to understand people's wants. It also tries to assess influences on the consumer from groups
such as family, friends, reference groups, and society in general..
Here are four typical types of buying behaviour based on the type of products that intends to be
purchased. Complex buying behaviour is where the individual purchases a high value brand and
seeks a lot of information before the purchase is made. Habitual buying behaviour is where the
individual buys a product out of habit e.g. a daily newspaper, sugar or salt. Variety seeking buying
behaviour is where the individual likes to shop around and experiment with different products. So an
individual may shop around for different breakfast cereals because he/she wants variety in the
mornings. Dissonance reducing buying behaviour is when buyer are highly involved with the
purchase of the product, because the purchase is expensive or infrequent. There is little difference
between existing brands an example would be buying a diamond ring, there is perceived little
difference between existing diamond brand manufacturers.
Stages of the Consumer Buying Process
Six Stages to the Consumer Buying Decision Process (For complex decisions). Actual purchasing is
only one stage of the process. Not all decision processes lead to a purchase. All consumer decisions
do not always include all 6 stages, determined by the degree of complexity..
The 6 stages are:
Problem Recognition(awareness of need)--difference between the desired state and the actual
condition. Deficit in assortment of products. Hunger--Food. Hunger stimulates your need to eat.
Can be stimulated by the marketer through product information. I.E., see a commercial for a new
pair of shoes, stimulates your recognition that you need a new pair of shoes.
Information search
Internal search, from memory and previous experiences.
External search if you need more information. Friends and relatives (word of mouth). Marketer
dominated sources; comparison shopping; public sources etc.
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A successful information search leaves a buyer with possible alternatives, the evoked set.
Hungry, want to go out and eat, evoked set is:
chinese food
indian food
burger king
klondike kates etc
Evaluation of Alternatives-need to establish criteria for evaluation, features the buyer wants or does
not want. Rank/weight alternatives or resume search. May decide that you want to eat something
spicy, indian gets highest rank etc.
If not satisfied with your choice then return to the search phase. Can you think of another
restaurant? Look in the yellow pages etc. Information from different sources may be treated
differently. Marketers try to influence by "framing" alternatives.
Purchase decision-Choose buying alternative, includes product, package, store, method of purchase
etc.
Purchase-The ultimate state desired. May differ from decision, time lapse between 4 & 5, product
availability.
Post-Purchase Evaluation-outcome: Satisfaction or Dissatisfaction. Cognitive Dissonance, have you
made the right decision. This can be reduced by warranties, after sales communication etc.
After eating an indian meal, may think that really you wanted a chinese meal instead.
Cultural Influences on Consumer Behaviour
Culture refers to a set of values, traditions or beliefs, which guide the individual behaviour. In a way
culture is normative as it prescribes norms of acceptable human behaviour. In other words culture
refers to values, ideas, attitudes and other meaningful symbol created by people to shape human
behaviour and the art facts of that behaviour transmitted from one generation to another. For
examples, beef is not accepted in the Hindu society and likewise pork in the Muslim society. Values in
culture are developed through socialization and acculturation. Refusing beef or mions or garlic by a is
a value developed through socialization. the use of a fork or knife to eat food by a Asian family is a
value acquired through acculturation. In any culture there are subcultures that exist. these are
different nationalities religious and geographic groups. For example in Malaysia there are
Hindus,Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs as exciting religious subcultures. A marketer needs to be aware
of these factors.cultural and sub cultural influences on consumer preferences. affect his brand,
packaging advertising sales promotion and even distribution decision. A culture's values are likely to
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influence its member’s purchases and consumption pattern. For example, one consumer may place a
high value on achievement and may demonstrate success with symbols of luxury and prestige.
Culture not only influences consumer behaviour, it reflects it. The preponderance of exercise
machines, fitness club, skin care lotions, diet foods, and low fat products reflects the emphasis.
Culture is therefore a mirror of both values and possessions of its members.
Hofstede's (1980) landmark study of the dimensions of culture can be considered, an etic approach
to the study of cultural values. That study explicitly described values as the core of culture and
defined them using Rokeach's definition. Hence, its premise was that the values preferred by a group
of people separate them from other groups and thus cultures can be compared with each other using
values as a standard. Hofstede's study revealed four dimensions of culture: power distance,
uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and masculinity
Culture influences behavior through its manifestations: values, heroes,rituals, and symbols. These are
the forms in which culturally-determined knowledge is stored and expressed. Thus, each cultural
group possesses different cultural manifestations. We utilize these manifestations, as they
encompass most elements of culture described by other authors. We will now describe the four
manifestations in detail.
Values. The term values Values. The term values rests at the heart of most definitions of
culture. In fact, most research seems to agree that values drive an individual's behavior. Historically,
consumer researchers have often viewed value as a centrally held, enduring belief which guides
actions and judgments across specific situations and beyond immediate goals to more ultimate end-
states of existence''. Examples of values are ``freedom,'' ``pleasure'', ``inner harmony'', and
``happiness''.
Hofstede's (1980) landmark study of the dimensions of culture can be considered, an etic approach
to the study of cultural values. That study explicitly described values as the core of culture and
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defined them using Rokeach's definition. Hence, its premise was that the values preferred by a group
of people separate them from other groups and thus cultures can be compared with each other using
values as a standard. Hofstede's study revealed four dimensions of culture: power distance,
uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and masculinity.
Rituals are pervasive in any society. Rituals are important for consumer behavior because they
involve the consumption of goods and services. Marketers' actions moderate the reciprocal
relationship between rituals and consumer behavior through advertising, which models ritualistic
behavior and helps it spread. Consumer products play a significant role in ritualistic behavior.
Products can be employed in their symbolic capacity to operationalize the ritual. Products can be
considered, therefore, as ritual artifacts and their consumption as part of a ritual.
Symbols. Symbols are a broad category of processes and objects that carry a meaning that is unique
to a particular group of people. Hence, a society's symbols may not exist in different cultures, or their
meaning may be different. Language is a set of symbols, as are different gestures, pictures, or
objects. The symbols most frequently studied by consumer researchers are language and consumer
products. Several authors have examined the symbolic nature of products and consumption. We can
infer from this body of research that product symbolism is generated at the societal level. Cultural
values,expressed in society's perceptions of reality and beliefs of what is desirable,seem to be
transferred to products through vehicles like advertising. These products then become charged with
cultural meaning. For example, a pair of sneakers can be elevated to a cultural symbol for the
value``a sense of accomplishment'' by ads that show a celebrity wearing them.Finally, individuals, in
their efforts to define their social self, are moved to consume the products which are now charged
with symbolic meaning.
Heroes. The term heroes refers to ``persons, alive or dead, real or imaginary,who possess
characteristics which are highly prized in a culture, and who thus serve as models for behavior he
more consumers are aware of their own ethnicity/culture, the more effective will be a spokesperson
from the consumers' ethnic/cultural group. Additionally, consumers holding a higher degree of racial
stereotypes will tend to employ racially focused heuristics in their product evaluations
The effect of values on consumer behavior
some studies have explored the effects of culture on cognitive processes like perception of time
examined, the effect of cultural orientation, operationalized along the individualism-collectivism
dimension, on self-construal. In a controlled experiment, found that both individualist and collectivist
consumers use brands for self-expressive purposes. They use brands, however, in different ways:
collectivist consumers use brands to reassert their similarity with members of their reference group,
while individualist consumers use brands to differentiate themselves from referent others.
Consumer ethnocentrism is a construct often studied by cross-cultural researchers. The construct
could be viewed as an instrumental value. Consumers' ethnocentrism determines their perceptions
of domestic versus foreign products (cognition), as well as their attitudes and behavior. Cultural
categories are the fundamental co-ordinates of meaning. They represent the basic distinctions with
which a culture divides up the phenomenal world. They help individuals organize and give meaning
to the world. There are several types of cultural categories: categories of time, space, nature, and
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person. One of the most important ways in which categories are substantiated is through the
consumption of goods. Cultural categories are formed according to cultural principles, or values..
Thus, the anthropological view of culture also recognizes that cognitive constructs (i.e. categories)
are determined by cultural manifestations (i.e. values).
Numerous studies have examined the role of cultural values on the attitude formation process. We
can distinguish between advertising studies and consumer behavior studies. Affect toward the ad
and/or product represents two of the most important gauges of success in advertising. Therefore, a
number of advertising researchers have examined affective variables in cross-cultural advertising. In
particular, several studies have attempted to ascertain the role of cultural values on ad-elicited
attitudes. For example, comparing high and low context cultures (Korea and the USA, respectively).
Their results indicated that consumers from low context cultures preferred commercials with high
levels of information. ads that depict norms and roles
consistent with local cultural values are more effective than ads which do not.
Acculturation
The increasing migration of people around the world creates complexity in most markets. As these
people are exposed to their host culture they begin to acculturate and may adopt its norms of
behavior.Increased migration is one of the forces that are causing ``radical changes'' in consumer
behavior. Immigrants not only adapt, or acculturate, to their host culture, but they also change the
culture themselves. Because of the mutual influence between immigrants and their host culture,
some researchers refer to acculturation as one of the components of a more general construct,
cultural interpenetration, which includes the bidirectional links between immigrants and their host
culture.
Managerial implications
This report can be useful for managers by providing them with a checklist to ensure that all possible
sources of variation in consumer behavior due to cultural differences are taken into account.
Market comparisons
If a firm is considering which foreign markets to enter and with what marketing mix, it may want to
evaluate which markets possess similar cultural Cross-cultural consumer behavior characteristics.
Once this is ascertained, the firm could offer a relatively standardized marketing mix in those cultures
possessing high similarity ratings. Cultural similarity ratings could be built by listing a series of issues
of importance to the firm under each of the bivariate interactions between cultural manifestations
and consumer behavior components.
Conclusion
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This report provides a framework that integrates and reinterprets current research in cross-cultural
consumer behavio. Culture is a system of meanings shared by members of a group. It is an important
part of marketing and management because it influences the consumers’ wants and needs and
because it impacts on the interpretations of products’ communication. This demonstrates that the
culture impacts consumer behaviour. The study of the consumer behaviour conducts companies to
adapt their products features, their packaging, their symbolic attributes, their service attributes and
their promotions.
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References
Consumer Behaviour; [Online]: Available on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_behaviour#Black_box_model
Consumer Psychology;[Online]: Available on:
http://www.consumerpsychologist.com/cb_Introduction.html
Culture;[Online]: Available on:
http://www.essays.se/about/Culture/
Buying Decision Process;[Online]: Available on:
http://www.learnmarketing.net/theory.htm
Cultural impact on consumer Behaviour;[Online]: Available on:
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~renglish/report/printing_notes.htm
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