Consumer Behavior

Importance of understanding the consumer behavior

The importance of understanding the consumer behavior is that to know and understand the preferences of different consumers which will enable the marketers to form the marketing strategies accordingly. Human being differ in terms of social status, nationality, age, sex, income, occupation, religion, family set-up, education and the culture of the society. We have different needs because of these differences. We buy only those products which we think will satisfy our needs. We can find out or classify the different market segment by analyzing the consumer behavior of same product or variation of same basic product. Better understanding of market segment is necessary for a marketing manager to design strategies for different segments. Knowledge of consumer behavior and taste is important factor which plays a vital role in the creation of marketing strategies.

Consumer taste are also changing as fast as the technology changes. In today's world technology changes are taking place rapidly. The changes in technology changes the taste of consumers. To cater to the need of a rapidly changing consumer trends, a firm has to constantly understand the latest consumer trends and tastes. Consumer behavior provides invaluable clues and guidelines to marketers on new technological frontiers which they should explore. For example, let us consider the 3G enabled mobile phones in India. When the 3G technology introduced and the service providers started 3G services in the end of 2010, the consumers exhibited a desire to purchase 3G enabled mobile phones than the ordinary mobile phones. In the early eighties when the color transmission started, consumers exhibited a desire to purchase color Television for closer-to-life color picture viewing.

To identify and understand the prospective customers and their buying behavior a management which believes in the philosophy of marketing concept will take necessary steps to constantly...