Consumer Behavior: Definition, Factors, and Types
Consumer behavior is the study of how people choose, buy, use, and dispose of products and services, and what influences those decisions. The scope described in Pearson’s overview of Consumer Behavior includes both consumption choices and decisions not to consume. Understanding the subject therefore means looking at the whole relationship with an offering, from selection through use and disposal.
What consumer behavior includes
Consumer behavior reaches beyond the transaction itself. Pearson’s description of the field includes choosing among alternatives, obtaining an offering, consuming it, and deciding what happens to it afterward. Products, services, ideas, and experiences all fall within that scope.
For a basic analysis, organize the subject around three questions: How is an offering selected? How is it used? What happens when its use ends? Record decisions not to buy alongside purchases. This keeps the research focused on consumption as a process, with a purchase as one part of it.
The main factors that influence consumer behavior
OpenStax groups influences on consumer buying behavior into five categories. Each category describes a different part of the decision.
| Influence | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Cultural | Shared values, learned expectations, and membership in cultural groups. |
| Social | Family, reference groups, opinion leaders, and social roles. |
| Personal | Income, occupation, life stage, lifestyle, and self-concept. |
| Psychological | Motivation, perception, learning, feelings, beliefs, and attitudes. |
| Situational | The shopping environment, time available, shopping purpose, and mood. |
These categories help organize an investigation. For each, identify the relevant influence and the evidence available about it. Income belongs under personal circumstances; a belief about quality belongs under psychology; time pressure belongs under the immediate situation.
Broad demographics offer an incomplete description: OpenStax notes that age and life stage can be poor predictors of buying behavior. An analysis should describe the decision’s circumstances alongside the consumer’s demographic characteristics.
The five stages of the buying decision process
The five-stage purchasing model presented by OpenStax connects what happens before, during, and after a purchase:
- Need recognition: Awareness of a gap between the current situation and a desired state starts the process.
- Information search: The consumer gathers information about possible ways to meet the need.
- Evaluation of alternatives: Available options are assessed against relevant product or service attributes.
- Purchase decision: The consumer reaches a decision about the offering to buy.
- Post-purchase evaluation: Perceived performance is compared with expectations, contributing to satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
The amount of work at each stage varies. OpenStax explains that routine purchases can skip extensive information search, while consequential purchases generally prompt more investigation. Use the stages to identify which part of a decision is being studied, and include experience after the transaction when the research concerns satisfaction.
Four types of consumer buying behavior
A common classification combines the importance of the purchase with the differences consumers perceive between brands. OpenStax’s four buying patterns use these two dimensions:
| Buying pattern | Involvement | Perceived brand differences |
|---|---|---|
| Complex | High | Significant |
| Dissonance-reducing | High | Limited |
| Habitual | Low | Limited |
| Variety-seeking | Low | Significant |
In OpenStax’s explanation, complex buying involves substantial research and comparison. Dissonance-reducing buying involves a consequential choice among similar alternatives, with possible doubts afterward. Habitual buying involves routine repetition with little comparison. Variety-seeking buying involves switching for novelty, which can occur without dissatisfaction with the previous purchase.
Apply the classification to the purchase under examination. Record involvement and perceived differences separately, then identify the corresponding pattern. The categories describe a buying decision; assigning a permanent personality label adds a claim the classification does not establish.
Why consumer choices change
The decision setting matters as well as the consumer. The OECD’s overview of consumer behavioral insights identifies limits on information processing, behavioral biases, and the effects of how information is presented. Its discussion includes loss aversion, anchoring, and framing.
This provides a reason to examine how an offering is encountered: the information displayed, the basis of comparison, and the terms visible at the decision point. In a study of presentation, document those details alongside the selection made. Treat framing as a mechanism to investigate in the particular setting, with its effect measured rather than assumed.
The number of available options is another research question. In their 2010 meta-analysis of choice overload, Benjamin Scheibehenne, Rainer Greifeneder, and Peter M. Todd examined experiments that varied assortment size. They found an average effect close to zero, with substantial variation across studies: some found adverse effects from larger assortments, while others found no such effect or benefits from more choice.
That result gives a specific limit to the claim that fewer options always improve decisions. For research on assortment size, assess the options available, the people choosing, and the outcome being measured. Distinguish willingness to select an option from satisfaction with the selection. The review considered several outcomes, including choice and satisfaction, so a single measure should be identified explicitly when reporting a result.
How researchers study consumer behavior
Research starts with a defined question and population. OpenStax’s account of marketing research methods distinguishes observation, interviews, surveys, and experiments, as well as primary data gathered for the current project and secondary data collected previously.
Choose the method according to the question:
- Observation records actions and how people interact with products in a setting.
- Interviews and focus groups gather detailed accounts and allow follow-up discussion.
- Surveys ask a shared set of questions across respondents.
- Experiments investigate whether changes produce different outcomes.
In a research report, label recorded actions as observations, respondents’ explanations as reported reasons, and proposed mechanisms as hypotheses. Specify who was studied, the period covered, and the decision examined. Keep those descriptions attached to the finding so its scope remains clear.
Causal claims require additional care. NIST’s explanation of correlation and causality states that two variables can move together because of another factor, without either causing the other. It describes designed experiments as a means of investigating causal relationships.
For a study intended to explain a change, define the proposed cause and measured outcome before interpreting the results. Document other differences between the groups or periods being compared. Separate a finding that two things are associated from a finding supported by a study designed to investigate causation. This distinction determines how strongly the research can explain a consumer’s choice.
How consumer behavior informs business decisions
The role of marketing research described by OpenStax is to understand needs, identify gaps in the market, and provide information for business decisions. Consumer behavior supplies questions for that work: which needs an offering addresses, how it is selected, and what happens during use.
Translate the research into a specified decision. Product research can examine needs and use; communication research can examine the information presented; purchase research can examine selection; and research after purchase can examine the experience. For each finding, state which decision it informs and which consumers it concerns.
Assess a proposed change against the question that prompted the research. Define the outcome to examine, document the change, and collect evidence suited to that outcome. This makes consumer behavior useful as a subject of investigation, with conclusions tied to particular choices and experiences.