Understanding Consumer Buying Behaviour

Q. What is the consumer buying behaviour? Who buys, who initiates, what is the best routing to get to your customer?

Consumer Behaviour (CB)
1. Segments
· Geographic (location, where are the customers)
Multi language, you have to identify the different countries.
· Demographic (age, income, gender, education)
Younger people tend to search on the Internet more before committing to anything,
older people (over 45’s) tend not to, and over 65’s tend not to use a computer at all.
· Behavioural (usage, do they have a modem/broadband?)
Identifying the type of customer, you have to have the text only option, for people with
disabilities.
· Psychographic / Lifestyle
Understanding your customer base.

2. Sell
· Who is the User? Decider? Influencer? Buyer? Gatekeeper?
Example... DOG FOOD, the user is the Dog, the decider is the owner, the Influencer will be
Pedigree (from ad on TV), the Buyer will be the owner or a friend and the Gatekeeper is
the shop its brought from.

Consumer Decision Making Process
Problem recognition
· Real need
· Generated need

Knowing Your Users
· Core/Fundamental Users – which your entire business relies on.
· Disadvantaged/Disability Users – men are more than likely to be colour blind than
women, at least 25%. Flashing sites have been known to cause epileptic fits – Olympic
Rings did just that.
· Graphics and text should be able to change for your user, TEXT option is vital, you should
also have sound adjustment.
· Being able to identify why does the customer want to use your website?
· Having a website that is relevant to your industry? Mars for example is most well known
for chocolate, if you go to their site it is very corporate and Blue.
· Userability - Vista for instance is not very user friendly, it is highly technical.
· Connection Speed – example... Friday at 4pm, the whole system seems to slow down on
Facebook.com. Pages and links must be available at lower speeds.
· Customers tend to have short attention span, 2 – 4 seconds. This is why it is vital to be
able to get to your products within 3 – 4 clicks. If you are trying to promote / sell
something this must happen within the first 2 – 4 seconds.