Customer vs. consumer

A consumer is a person or an organization that consumes whether he buys or not. That is, consumer is known for actual use or employment of a product or service; he or she does not worry about paying for the same. On the contrary, customer is definitely a buyer or who purchases and may or may not actually consume a given product or service.

1. Customer Vs. Consumer What is the difference between a customer and a consumer ? • A customer – purchases and pays for a product or service. Eg Wifi , TV, Car • A consumer – is the ultimate user of the product or service; the consumer may not have paid for the product or service. Eg . Flight tickets

2. Consider the following example: A food manufacturing business makes own-label, Italian ready meals for the major supermarkets. So far as the business is concerned, the customer is the supermarket to whom it supplies meals The consumer is the individual who eats the meal.

3. A consumer is a person or an organization that consumes whether he buys or not. That is, consumer is known for actual use or employment of a product or service; he or she does not worry about paying for the same. On the contrary, customer is definitely a buyer or who purchases and may or may not actually consume a given product or service.

4. What is Consumer Behaviour? Consumer behaviour refers to the buying behaviour of final consumers—individuals and households who buy goods and services for personal consumption.

5. Factors Influencing Consumer Behaviour

6. Factors affecting consumer behaviour Cultural Factors: Culture is the learned values, perceptions, wants, and behaviour from family and other important institutions. Culture - is the most fundamental determinant of a person’s wants and behaviour. The growing child acquires a set of values, perceptions, preferences and behaviour through his or her family and other key institutions. Eg . A Nation or Country b) Subculture - Subcultures are groups of people within a culture with shared value systems based on common life experiences and situations • Bengalis • Gujaratis • Punjabis • Kannadigas ….

7. c) Social classes- Social classes are society’s relatively permanent and ordered divisions whose members share similar values, interests, and behaviours measured by a combination of occupation, income, education, wealth, etc.

8. 2) Social Factors: A consumer behaviour is also influenced by such social factors as references groups, family and social roles and status. Reference Group : Many group influence a person’s behaviour. A person’s reference group consists of all the group that have a direct influence on a person are called membership groups . These are groups to which the person belongs and with whom the person interact fairly and continually. Role and status : A person participates in many groups throughout life-family, clubs, organizations. The person’s position in each group can be defined in terms of roles and status. People choose products that communicate their role and status in society.

9. 3 ) Personal factors : A buyer’s decision is also influenced by personal characteristics like; a) Age and life cycle stage : People buy different goods and services over their life time. They eat baby food in their early years, most food in the growing and mature years, and special diets in the later years. People’s taste in cloths, furniture and recreation is also age related. Marketers often choose life cycle groups as their target market. b) Occupation : A person’s occupation also influence his or her consumption pattern. Marketers try to identify the occupational groups that have above- average interest in their products and services. A company can even specialise their products for certain occupational groups. E.g . Blackberry (Business Phone)

10. c) Economic Circumstances : Products choice is greatly affected by one’s economic circumstances. People’s economic circumstances consists of their spendable income (its level, stability and time pattern) , savings and assets, debits, borrowing power and attitude towards spending vs. savings. Marketers of income-sensitive goods pay constant attention to trends in personal income, saving and interest rates. Eg . demand for staple food item normally does not increase with higher income levels; but demand for gourmet food or restaurant food does increase as individual’s income grows. d) Life-style : People coming from the same sub-culture, social class and occupation may lead quite different lifestyles. Lifestyle portrays the “whole person” interacting with his or her environment. Marketers will search for relationship between their products and lifestyle products.

11. e) Personality and Self-concept : Each person has a distinct personality that will influence his or her buying behaviour . By personality, we mean the person’s distinguishing psychological characteristics that lead to relatively consistent and enduring responses to his or her environment. Many marketers use a concept related to personality-a person’s self concept. Marketer try to develop brand images that match the target market self image.

12. 4) Psychological factors- A person’s buying choices are influenced by following four major psychological factors: Motivation : A person has many needs and at any given time some needs are biogenic. They arise from Psychological states such as hunger, thirst, discomfort. (Maslow's Hierarchy Of needs)

13. b) Perception : A motivated person is ready to act. How the motivated person is actually acts is influenced by his or her perception of the situation. The fact is that we apprehend a stimulus object through sensation that flows through our five senses. Sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. Perception is defined as “ the process by which an individual select and organises and interprets information inputs to create a meaningful picture of the world. Perception depends not only on the physical stimuli but also on the stimuli's related to the surrounding field and on conditions within the individuals. People can emerge with different perception of the same object because of three perceptual processes selective attention, selective distortion and selective retention.

14. Learning Changes in individual’s behavior arising from experience. Learning happens through the interplay of Stimuli : a motive directing toward a particular thing Cues: stimuli saying when , where and how we respond. Responses: buying a product   Beliefs and attitudes Belief: A descriptive thought that a person holds about something (Marketers are interested in the beliefs that people formulate about specific products and services because these beliefs make up product and brand images that affect buying behaviour ). Attitudes : favourable or unfavourable evaluation, feelings and tendencies toward an object or idea.