What are the 4 types of consumer decisions?

An understanding of consumer behavior is necessary for the long-term success and survival of a firm. Consumer decision making is viewed as the edifice of the marketing concept, an important orientation in marketing management.

The marketer should be able to determine needs and wants of the target segment and provide product and service offerings more effectively and efficiently than competitors.

Types of Consumer Decision Making

The following are the types of decision making methods which can be used to analyze consumer behavior −

Extensive Problem Solving

In extensive decision making, the consumers have no established or set criteria for evaluating a product in a particular category. Here the consumers have not narrowed the number of brands from which they would like to consider and so their decision making efforts can be classified as extensive problem solving. In this particular set of problem solving phase, the consumer needs a lot of information to set a criteria on the basis of specific brands could be judged.

Limited Problem Solving

In limited problem solving, the consumers have already set the basic criteria or standard for evaluating the products. However, they have not fully set the established preferences and they search for additional information to discriminate among other products or brands.

Routinized Response Behavior

Here, in routinized response behavior, consumers have experience with the product and they have set the criteria for which they tend to evaluate the brands they are considering. In some situations, they may want to collect a small amount of additional information, while in others they may simply review what they are aware about. In extensive problem solving, consumer seeks for more information to make a choice, in limited problem solving consumers have the basic idea or the criteria set for evaluation, whereas in routinized response behavior consumers need only little additional information.

Views of Consumer Decision Making

An Economic View

Consumers have generally been assumed to make rational decisions. The economic view of consumer decision making is being criticized by researchers because a consumer is assumed to posses the following traits to behave rationally −

• Firstly, they need to be aware of all the alternatives present in the market

• Secondly, they must be able to efficiently rank the products as per their benefits.

• Lastly, they must also know the best alternative that suits them as per their requirements.

In the world of perfect competition, consumers rarely have all the information to make the so called ‘perfect decision.’

A Passive View

Passive view is totally opposite to the economic view. Here, it is assumed that consumers are impulsive and irrational while making a purchase. The main limitation of this view is that consumers also seek information about the alternatives available and make rational or wise decisions and purchase the products or services that provides the greatest satisfaction.

A Cognitive View

The cognitive model helps individuals to focus on the processes through which they can get information about selected brands. In the framework of cognitive view, the consumer very actively searches for such products or services that can fulfill all their requirements.

An Emotional View

Consumers are associated with deep feelings or emotions such as, fear, love, hope etc. These emotions are likely to be highly involving.

Consumer decisions can be categorized into three primary types: 

• Routinized Response - This is the kind of decision where you don't really have to think much about it. 
• Limited Problem Solving - This type of purchase decision involves a little more thinking or a little more consideration. 
• Extensive Problem Solving - This is when we're making a decision to purchase and we are really going to labor over that decision. 

Each of these is discussed further below. 

What is a Routinized Response?

This is the kind of decision where you don't really have to think much about it. That is, it's a routine. In the context of making a purchase, this is when we make the decision to purchase without going through the consumer decision-making process. Generally, it means we simply follow or repeat a previous course of action. Think of going to the store and buying the same type or brand of grocery item that you buy every week. You do this as a routine, rather than identifying alternatives and comparing them. 

What is Limited Problem Solving?

This type of purchase decision involves a little more thinking or a little more consideration. Maybe we consider different products in making our purchase. Maybe we consider how much to buy. Whatever our considerations, we're going to spend more time and effort making this decision or making this purchase. 

What is Extensive Problem Solving? 

This is when we're making a decision to purchase and we are really going to labor over that decision. That is, we are really going to consider it thoroughly. We may do a great deal of research. We may consult friends or look at customer reviews. We generally use this approach when it is something that we have never bought before, its very technical in nature,  or when it is a very expensive item (like a car). Generally, this type of decision involves the most time, information, and effort in the evaluation of alternatives.

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4 Types of Consumer Buying Behavior (Assael)

• COMPLEX BUYING BEHAVIOR Consumers go through complex buying behavior when they are highly involved in a purchase and aware of significant differences among brands.

  Example: This applies to high-involvement products such as a laptop computer. Buyers may not know what attributes to consider in these products, so they do research. This buyer will pass through a learning process characterized by first developing beliefs about the product, then attitudes, and then making a thoughtful purchase choice.

  
  Marketing strategy: Knowing this, marketers can help educate buyers about product, attributes, differentiate and describe the brand's features, and motivate store personnel and others to influence the final brand choice.
  
• DISSONANCE-REDUCING BUYING BEHAVIOR: In some cases the consumer is highly involved in a purchase, but sees little difference between the brands.

  Example: This applies to high-involvement products such as carpeting. Carpeting is expensive and self-expressive, yet the buyer may consider most brands in a given price range to be the same. After buying, the consumer might experience dissonance after noticing certain disquieting features or hearing favourable things about other brands.

  
  Marketing strategy: Marketers should supply beliefs and evaluations that help consumers feel good about their brand choices.
  In this case, the buyer will shop around to learn what is, available but will buy fairly quickly because brand differences are not pronounced. The buyer may respond primarily to a good price or to purchase convenience.
• HABITUAL BUYING BEHAVIOR: Many products are bought under conditions of low consumer involvement and the absence of significant brand differences.

  Example: This applies to low-involvement products such as detergent or salt. Consumers keep buying the same brand out of habit, not due to strong brand loyalty because they are passive recipients of information conveyed by advertising.

  
  Marketing strategy: Ad repetition creates brand familiarity rather than brand conviction. Marketers of such products can use price and sales promotions to entice new customers to try their products. The ad should stress only a few key points. Visual symbols and images are important because they can easily be remembered and associated with the brand. Marketers can try to convert the low-involvement product into one of higher involvement.
• VARIETY-SEEKING BUYING BEHAVIOR: Certain buying situations are characterized by low consumer involvement but significant brand differences. Here consumers are known to do a lot of switching between brands.

  Example: This applies to low-involvement products such as potato chips. In this category, consumers switch brands often because they want more variety.

  
  Marketing strategy: The marketing strategy is different for the market leader and the minor brands in this product category. The market leader will try to encourage habitual buying behavior by dominating shop shelf spaces, keeping shelves stocked, and running frequent reminder ads. Challenger firms will encourage variety seeking by offering lower prices, coupons, free samples, and ads that offer reasons for trying something new.
  

Have you ever caught yourself craving trendy shoes? Only to realise that there is nothing really special about their look a few weeks after, and you are left wondering why you even purchased them in the first place. This scenario is very similar to the four consumer buying behaviours described down below.

Generally speaking, there are different consumer buying behaviours, which can be categorised in the following:

1. Extended Decision-Making

2. Limited Decision-Making

3. Habitual Buying Behavior

4. Variety-Seeking Buying Behavior 

1. Extended Decision-Making

Extended Decision-Making occurs when consumers are buying a rather expensive product. 

What do you do when thinking about purchasing a designer handbag for a four-figure price? Of course, you spend some time doing in-depth research about the handbag, before making your final purchase decision. Since it is a high-end handbag, the economic risk of buying it is much higher than if you would buy an average bag.

Simply put, you would not necessarily purchase a designer fashion item on a daily basis. Therefore you spend more time evaluating the looks and the use of the product, and how you will feel about it after purchasing it. You might even ask your family and friends for advice, or read product reviews online before committing to investing. 

2. Limited Decision-Making

Speaking of Limited Decision-Making, consumers are faced with limited decision making. This essentially means that there is a limiting variety or availability of this product on the market.  

For example, you really fancy this pair of sunglasses with white frames and yellow-tinted lenses. However, there are only two brands out there that offer this style of sunglasses. Brand “X” offers their sunglasses for 195,-. Yes, that is a lot for a single pair of sunglasses. But the other sunglasses available, by the brand “Z”, costs 365,-, which is far more expensive than those sold by brand “X”. 

Since you do not have a lot of options (and because you desperately want to own this stylish pair of sunglasses with yellow-tinted lenses), you decide to spend your money on brand “X” anyway, if you have the budget, of course (even though they are pretty expensive). 

3. Habitual Buying Behavior

Habitual Buying Behaviour plays a big role in our daily routine. We do not put a lot of thought or research into buying a product that is incredibly cheap and available in masses, at the same time. 

For instance, you frequently buy a new pair of socks. Either because you always misplace them or because you always end up having holes in them. What you do is, you continue buying the one pair of socks that costs the least amount of money, since you keep running out of socks. It has literally become a habit of yours.

4. Variety-Seeking Buying Behavior 

You display this type of purchase behaviour when there are visible differences between a product within the existing brands. You, as a consumer, might want to try out a similar product of various brands out of curiosity. 

To give you a concrete example, you may feel the urge to buy a plain, white t-shirt in slightly different designs at multiple stores. Just because you might not want to wear the exact same white t-shirt every day - you want to switch things up every now and then. The t-shirt is very affordable at all places, so buying 3 or 5 of them should not be a problem at all. 

How To Cultivate A More Conscious Buying Behaviour 

Many of the buying behaviours described above, are often impulsive and can easily be influenced by the media, like TV, print, radio and social media. On top of all of this, these types of purchasing decisions often come at an environmental cost. To avoid or reduce impulsive buying, it is important to be more conscious of your purchase behaviour. 

Here are 3 tips on how you can become a more conscious consumer:

1. Choose quality over quantity. A product should last years, instead of a few months or even weeks, so if you have to repurchase it after only a few uses, is buying the product really worth it?

2. The cheapest price is rarely the fair one - So spend some time researching your investments, even the very small ones. Consider how a product is made, where it was made, who made it, if they were fairly paid for their work and how it impacts the environment.

3. Support conscious brands using ethical fashion certifications, like B-Corp.

Do you want to learn more about ethical fashion certifications? If so, feel free to read our blog post here: 5 Ethical Fashion Certifications You Need To Know About.

Sources

https://clootrack.com/knowledge_base/types-of-consumer-behavior//

https://www.business2community.com/consumer-marketing/understanding-types-consumer-buying-behavior-0822037

https://zoovu.com/blog/types-buying-behavior/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/01/smarter-living/sustainabile-shopping-conscious-consumer.html

https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/ways-to-change-your-shopping-mindset-and-become-a-more-conscious-consumer

https://growensemble.com/conscious-consumerism/

https://www.woronstore.com/blogs/journal/5-ways-to-become-a-conscious-consumer