Buying Behaviour Purchasing and Marketing Management

Question: Discuss about the Buying Behaviour for Purchasing and Marketing Management. Answer: Introduction Any business organisation exists to serve its consumers. Consumers are the cause and purpose of all business activities. Thus, to serve its customers well, it becomes implicit for the business to study the factors that lead its consumers to make purchase decisions. The following report aims to provide insight into the concept of buyer behaviour and the internal and external factors that lead to purchase decisions with the help of an example. Concept of Buyer Behaviour Buyers behaviour may be defined as the study of the processes involved when individuals or group select, purchase, use or dispose of products, services, ideas or experiences to satisfy their needs (Quester, 2011). It tends to study the consumer under the roles of user, payer and buyer. The study of consumer behaviour is essential to develop a fuller understanding of customers need and the factors influencing their purchase decisions using the underlying theories of psychology, economics and anthropology (Brennan, Binney and Parker, 2014). This in turn helps in developing effective marketing strategies to attract them to make a purchase. Typically, four types of buying behaviours exist for any consumer, viz. routine buying, complex buying, limited decision making and impulse buying (Baker and Parkinson, 2016). However, the major and minor purchase decisions of a consumer are shaped by many internal and external factors. These factors play an important role in deciding their stimuli, brand preference, purchase motives, consumption patterns and influences (Masterson and Pickton, 2014). These factors are discussed in detail in following sections in the context of making a major purchase like buying a car. Internal Influences Internal factors influencing the consumers decisions are the psychological factors that are inherent in the consumers themselves. These factors include motivation, perception, learning and experience and beliefs and attitudes of the consumer. For example, in order to buy a car, motivation and attitude of consumers help them to make positive decisions. It is because, motivation acts as a driving force that impels an individual to take action to satisfy his or her needs (ffing and Stasing, 2013). According to Maslows Hierarchy of needs theory, social motivation is one of the effective factors that influence the decision-making process of an individual. It is because in order to maintain the effective level of social status, individuals need to satisfy the basic needs as well as secondary needs (McGuire, 2012). In terms of purchasing a car, the secondary need is related to the show off the reputation in the society. Perception is also an internal factor that influences the buying behaviour of consumers. It is because, on the basis of perception, an individual makes a decision whether to purchase the product or not. For example, attractive advertisements about the car communicate the quality and features of the car, which influences the perception of individuals and motivate them to make positive purchase decisions related to the product (Chon, Pizam and Mansfeld, 2012). External Influences Apart from the internal factors, external factors also influence the consumer buying behaviour in the market. External factors include the political, culture, social class and reference groups, etc. because these factors are associated with the groups that the individual belongs to and interacts with. In this, the cultural factor indicates the traditions, taboos, values and basic attitude of the entire society in which the individual live. This factor positively affects the purchase decisions of buyers (Egan, 2014). For example, in the Asian countries, at the time of the festive season, people more prefer to buy property or car as compared to the normal days of a year. On the other hand, social class can be defined as a group, which is more or less homogenous and ranked against each other in order to form a social hierarchy (Liu, 2013). The buying decisions in these classes mainly depend upon the income level. For example, consumers from the middle and upper class generally spend money on purchasing semi-luxury or luxury property as compared to the lower class. It is because middle or upper class has more money to spend on the property (Mills and Law, 2013). Conclusion From the above discussion, it can be concluded that consumer buying behaviour influence from different factors and environment. In this, internal and external factors both positively and negatively impact on the buying behaviour of the consumers. It is because internal factors such as attitude and beliefs, personality, perception and motivation support the individuals to fulfil their basic needs in terms of making positive purchase decisions related to the major purchases such as car or holiday packages. On the other hand, external factors such as social class, economy, politics, and culture also influence the consumer buying behaviour in terms of taking purchase decisions related to the property. References Baker, M. J. and Parkinson, S. T. (2016). Organizational Buying Behaviour: Purchasing and Marketing Management Implications. USA: Springer. Brennan, L., Binney, W. and Parker, L. (2014). Social Marketing and Behaviour Change: Models, Theory and Applications. UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Chon, K. S., Pizam, A. and Mansfeld, Y. (2012). Consumer Behavior in Travel and Tourism. UK: Routledge. Egan, J. (2014). Marketing Communications. USA: SAGE. Liu, W. M. (2013). The Oxford Handbook of Social Class in Counseling. USA: OUP. Masterson, R. and Pickton, D. (2014). Marketing: An Introduction. USA: SAGE. McGuire, K. J. (2012). Maslow's hierarchy of needs. An introduction. Germany: GRIN Verlag. Mills, J. and Law, R. (2013). Handbook of Consumer Behavior, Tourism, and the Internet. UK: Routledge. Quester, P. (2011). Consumer Behaviour: Implications for Marketing Strategies, 6th edn. USA: Mc-Graw Hill. ffing, C. and Stasing, V. (2013). The Effect of In-store TV in Supermarkets on Customer-based Brand Equity for Consumer Goods. Germany: GRIN Verlag.