IGNOU : M.COM : MCO 6 : UNIT 4 : Q - 1. What do you mean by buyer behaviour? Why is understanding of buyer behaviour important for marketers

 Ans. Various experts have defined buyer/Consumer behaviour differently. According to Schiffman and Kanuk consumer behaviour is the behaviour that buyers or consumers display in searching for, purchasing, using, evaluating, and disposing of products and services that they expect will satisfy their needs. Moven has defined it as the study of decision- making units arid the process involved in acquiring, consuming, and disposing of goods, services, experiences, and ideas.

IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING BUYER BEHAVIOUR

All marketing strategies and tactics are based on explicit or implicit beliefs about buyer behaviour. The study of buyers helps firms and organizations improve their marketing strategies by understanding issues such as:

• How buyers think, feel, reason, and select between different alternatives (e.g., brands, products)? Buyer Behaviour.
• How is the buyer influenced by his or her environment (e.g., culture, family, signs, and media)? 
• Helps in understanding the behaviour buyers display while shopping or making other marketing decisions.
• How buyer motivation and decision strategies differ between products that differ in their level of importance or interest that they entail for the buyer; and
• How marketers can improve their promotional campaigns and marketing strategies to target the buyer more effectively'? 

There are four main applications of buyer behavior which are discussed below: 

• The most obvious is for marketing strategy-i.e., for making better marketing decisions. For example, by understanding that buyers are more receptive to food advertising when they are hungry, we learn to schedule snack advertisements late in the afternoon. 
• A second application is public policy. In the 1980s, when Accutane, a near miracle cure for acne, resulted in severe birth defects in pregnant women, Federal Drug Administration (FDA) of US took the step of requiring that very graphic pictures of deformed babies be shown on the medicine containers.
• Social marketing involves getting ideas across to buyers rather than selling something. Understanding buyer behaviour will help in espousing for social causes such as planned families, prohibition, equality of girl child etc. Government agencies with the help of buyer behaviour knowledge may develop appropriate promotional strategies for greater acceptance of social causes. 
• As a final benefit, studying buyer behaviour should make us better buyers. Common sense suggests, for example, that if you buy a 200 ml liquid bottle of laundry detergent, you should pay less per ml than if you bought two 100 ml bottles. In practice, however, you often pay a size premium by buying the larger quantity. In other words, in this case, knowing this fact will sensitize you to the need to check the unit cost labels to determine if you are really getting a bargain.

In today's world of high technology, buyer tastes are also changing rapidly. To survive in such a rapidly changing market, a firm has to constantly understand the latest consumer trends and tastes. Buyer behaviour provides invaluable clues and guidelines to marketers on new technological frontiers which they should explore. For example, let us consider the advent of colour television in India. When we switched over from black and white transmission to colour transmission in the early eighties, the buyers exhibited a desire to purchase colour TVs for closer-to-life picture viewing.