Consumer behaviour research refers to the study of how and why consumers make purchasing decisions. It involves understanding consumers' motives, attitudes, and perceptions through techniques like questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and projective tests. The goals are to understand consumers' price sensitivity, preferences for full-line purchasing vs individual components, and differing needs across customer groups in order to effectively segment markets and differentiate marketing strategies. While consumers may be difficult to analyze due to multiple motives and attitudes that change over time, modern techniques can provide useful insights into purchasing behaviors.

1. CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
RESEARCH
ANTONY KOLANCHERY
FACULTY OF MANAGEMENT

2. DEFINITION
•The consumer behaviour research is alternatively
termed as motivation research or study of buying
motives. Simply put, the term refers to the study
of consumers behaviour or responses to a
particular brand, product, or quality, and of the
circumstances leading to such behavioural
patterns.

3. • According to Lawrence Lockley, the term consumer behaviour research is used to
describe the application of psychiatric and psychological techniques to obtain a
better understanding of why people respond they do to products, advertisement,
and various other marketing situations.
• The purpose of consumer behaviour research is to obtain the qualitative aspects of
information about the consumer behaviour; that is, the ascertainment and appraisal
of inherent and unknown qualities, habits, beliefs, attitudes, values, etc. of the
consumers through the means of psycho-analysis and psychographics.

4. • 1. Price Sensitivity:
• Whenever the choice of a product depends on its price or whenever the primary
demand of a’ product is price sensitive, a low-cost and low-price approach to
marketing became the realistic basis.
• On the other hand, where the consumers are more interested in non-price benefits
such as technical assistance, after-sales service, product quality, etc., a low-price
approach to marketing may not be beneficial to the particular market segments.
Thus, consumer’s price sensitivity which influences the market should be sought in
the consumer behaviour research.

5. • 2. Full-Line Purchasing:
• The consumer’s interest in buying a ‘full-line’ of products or ‘systems’ as opposed
individual components directly affects the scope of marketing activity. Thus,
consumer’s desire to buy either full-line of complementary products from a single
buyer or a complete system of products to fulfill several related functions becomes
the consideration to be known in the research.

6. • 3. Differentiation of Consumer Needs:
• The information as to the variants of needs across customer groups,
customer function or technology segments are always necessary to
determine the differentiated marketing or market segmentation.

7. DIFFICULTIES OF CONSUMER
BEHAVIOUR RESEARCH:
• A consumer may have multiple buying motives and is unable to express his main
motive. This poses a challenge to the researcher in. the identification of the basic
buying motive.
• A consumer may hesitate to explain his buying motive or give a misstatement of his
motive. This misleads the researcher to identify the real motive for buying.
• A consumer may be so ignorant that he cannot understand his inner urge that prompts him to
buy or not to buy. The researcher does not get any clue to identify the buying motive.

8. • A consumer’s personality, his behavioural attitudes, beliefs and values undergo change
with the changes in socio-psycho-economic structure. His buying motives also change on
this account. Thus, the study of the consumer behaviour is not a one-shot affair but
requires consistent and regular updating from period to period.
• The techniques used in the study of consumer behaviour are of empirical nature and not
precise like mathematics or science. Thus, conclusions drawn may be imperfect and
unsuitable for implementation.
• In spite of these difficulties, it should not be construed that consumer behaviour research
is a futile exercise. Novel and modern techniques like projective tests which put emphasis
on consumer perception and ambition have come to play a great role in this field of
research.

9. TECHNIQUES OF CONSUMER
BEHAVIOUR RESEARCH:
• The methods that find application in this research are:
• (1) Experience and knowledge,
• (2) Questionnaires,
• (3) Depth interviews, and
• (4) Projective tests.

10. • (1) Experience and Knowledge:
• This method refers to the estimation and assessment of the consumers’ traits and
approaches to the buying habits on the basis of knowledge and experience gained
by the marketing personnel through day-to-day dealings with the consumers.
• Through regular contacts and rapports, the marketers come to knew of the
buying motives like quality, convenience, comfort, etc. expressed directly or
indirectly by the consumers. These results, after appropriate analysis and
interpretation, give guidance for decision actions on the marketing activities like
distribution, pricing, etc.

11. TECHNIQUES OF CONSUMER
BEHAVIOUR RESEARCH:
• (2) Questionnaires:
• This method involves the preparation of carefully worded questions by the marketing
executive (in consultation with the psychologist in some cases) on various pertinent
aspects relating to the product, its features, prices, specialities, etc. These
questionnaires are then mailed to the selected groups of consumers in different
market segments for their feed-back information.
• Such information are then meticulously analysed with a view to understanding the
consumers’ behaviour and attitudes. The drawbacks of this system are: inconsistency
in replies, low rate of response, vague answers, wrong selection ‘of consumers for
opinion, etc.

12. 3) DEPTH INTERVIEW:
• It refers to the close rapport and free discussion for the purpose of exchange of views and
ideas on the products and associated services between the marketer (the interviewer) and
the consumers (the interviewees).
• In this method, both the parties open their minds and unfold the truth even going to the
sub-conscious state of mind. The processes of sensation-intuition-thinking-feeling on the
part of the interviewer and the interviewee can figure out the reasons for particular attitude
and behaviour.

13. (4) PROJECTIVE TESTS:
• There are various methods of applying these tests for the study of consumer behaviour. In
projective tests, a stimulus situation projecting the inner aspects of a consumer’s
personality is created concerning a product or service so that the consumer gets an
opportunity to express his needs and his reactions.
• The most common methods are:
• (i) Thematic Appreciation Test (TAT),
• (ii) Sentence Completion Test (SCT),
• (iii) Word Appreciation Test (WAT) and
• (iv) Paired Pictures Test (PPT).