A detailed investigation and analysis of consumers behavior helps marketers to be aware of the different activities of the consumer and the ways they acquire, use up and disposed the goods and services provided. Consumers behave in different ways and some behave in similar ways or are alike , their approach to a product differ because some consumers prefer goods that apply to their personality, convenience and the attributes and brand of the product.
Understanding consumers can ensures success in the market place because organizations would be able to develop their marketing strategies and also be able to get in to the minds of the consumer and to think in the same way they do, with this in place the marketer can determine the various factors that helps in influencing the behavior of the consumer for example the environmental factors such as the family, social class, culture and personal influences which can be closely linked to each other and the individual factors such as personality, attitudes, lifestyles etc. these factors helps in the shaping of the consumer behavior.
According to assistant professor Lars Perner, P. H. D consumer behavior occurs either for the individual. Or in the context of a group for example friends influence what kinds of clothes a person wears or an organization, people on a job make decisions as to which product the firm should use.
The consumer decision process helps the marketers to determine the variables that influence the consumer that leads them to behave the way they do. The model is made up of seven stages; need recognition, search, pre-purchase evaluation and alternatives, purchase, consumption, post-consumption evaluation (satisfaction and dissatisfaction) and divestment.
Each stage plays a significant role on how the consumer obtains, consume and dispose the goods and services acquire. Need recognition this is when a need arises from a past experience for example a consumer is hungry and desires chicken and he/she decides to try churches for the first time, a need has arisen and consumer made the decision to go and satisfy the need by purchasing churches chicken, and if the product experience has a strong or positive impact on the consumer then if the need occurs again they would know where to go to fulfill it, because the experience in the past has been recorded in the mind of the buyer.
