Dipti Barge / Somnath Thigale / Vidya Karande Hariba
Consumer purchase behavior is comparatively a new field of study, which evolved just after the Second World War. The seller’s market has disappeared and the buyers’ market has come up. This led to paradigm shift of the manufacturer’s attention from product to consumer and specially focused on the consumer behavior. The evaluation of marketing concept from mere selling concept to consumer oriented marketing has resulted in buyer behavior becoming an independent discipline. The growth of consumerism and consumer legislation emphasizes the importance that is given to the consumer. Consumer behavior is a study of how individuals make decision to spend their available resources (time, money and effort) or consumption related aspects. What they buy? When they buy? How they buy? Etc. The heterogeneity among people makes understanding consumer behavior a challenging task to marketers. Hence, marketers felt the need to obtain an in-depth knowledge of consumers buying behavior. Finally this knowledge acted as an imperative tool in the hands of marketers to forecast the future buying behavior of customers and devise four marketing strategies in order to create long term customer relationship.
