6Fi Team 2

Consumer and
organizational buyer
behavior
 ▪ After studying this chapter, you should be able
to:
▪ 1. Understand the different motivations of
consumer and organisational buyers
OBJECTIVES ▪ 2. Formulate strategies for approaching
consumer and organisational buyers
▪ 3. Recognise the importance of relationship
management
 3.1 DIFFERENCES
BETWEEN
CONSUMER AND
ORGANIZATIONAL
BUYING
FEWER ORGANIZATIONAL
BUYERS

• A company marketing industrial products will have fewer potential

buyers than one marketing in consumer markets.

CLOSE, LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN

ORGANZATIONAL BUYERS AND SELLERS
• Invest in long-term relationships with them

ORGANIZATIONAL BUYERS ARE MORE RATIONAL

• Organizational buyers have to justify their decisions to other members of their organization.

ORGANIZATIONAL BUYING MAY BE TO SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS

• It is not uncommon in business to business marketing for buyers to determine product

specifications and for sellers to tailor their product offerings to meet them.
RECIPROCAL BUY MAY BE
IMPORTANT IN
ORGANIZATIONAL BUYING

• Because an organizational buyer may be in a powerful negotiating

position with a seller, it may be possible to demand concessions in
return for placing the order.

ORGANIZATIONAL
SELLING/BUYING
MAY BE MORE RISKY
• Business to business markets are sometimes characterized
by a contract being agreed before the product is made.
Further, the product itself may be highly technical and the
seller may be faced with unforeseen problems once work has
started.
ORGANIZATIONAL
BUYING IS MORE
COMPLEX

• Many organizational purchases, notably those which involve large sums of money
and are new to the company, involve many people at different levels of the
organization.

NEGOTATION IS OFTEN
IMPORTANT IN
ORGANIZATIONAL BUYING

• Negotiation is often important in organizational

buying because of the presence of professional
buyers and sellers and the size and complexity of
organizational buying.
3.2 CONSUMER
BUYER
BEHAVIOR
 Sometimes it is difficult to classify a product as
either a consumer or an organizational good.

CONSUMER For both types of buyer, an understanding of

customers can only be obtained by answering the
BUYER following five questions:
BEHAVIOUR 1. Who is important in the buying decision?
2. How do they buy?
3. What are their choice criteria?
▪ Consumers are individuals who
buy products and services for 4. Where do they buy?
personal consumption. 5. When do they buy?
 ▪ However, decision-making can also be made
by a buying center, such as a household. In this
situation a number of individuals may interact to
influence the purchase decision. Each person
may assume a role in the decision-making
process.

Who buys?

Many consumer
purchases are
individual.
 Initiator Influencer: The Decider: Buyer: User: the
person who
the person attempts to
the individual the person actual
who begins persuade others with the power who conducts consumer/u
the process of in the group and/or the ser of the
considering a concerning the financial transaction:
purchase. outcome of the authority to who calls the
product.
Information decision. make the supplier, visits
may be Influencers ultimate the store,
typically gather
gathered by information and
choice makes the
this person to attempt to regarding payment and
help the impose their which product effects
decision. choice criteria to buy. delivery.
on the decision
 ▪ Behavioural scientists regard
the consumer decision-making
process as a problemsolving or
The consumer
decision- need-satisfaction process.
making
process – how
they buy
Needs
• The needs (stimulated by problem
identification). Successful selling may
involve identifying needs in more detail

Information Gathering
• Many needs can only be satisfied after a period of
information search.
• The buyer may reduce the number of alternatives
to a manageable few and contact the salesperson
only to determine the kind of deal available on
the competing models. Information search by
consumers is helped by the growth of internet
usage and companies that provide search
facilities. Many consumers now gather
information on products and prices before
entering a store.
Evaluation of
alternatives
and selection
of the best
solution
 ▪ 1. Evaluative (choice) criteria: these are the
dimensions used by consumers to compare or evaluate
products or brands.
▪ 2. Beliefs: these are the degrees to which, in the
Evaluation of consumer’s mind, a product possesses various
characteristics.
alternatives
and selection ▪ 3. Attitudes: these are the degrees of liking or disliking
a product and are in turn dependent on the evaluative
of the best criteria used to judge the products and the beliefs
solution about the product measured by those criteria.
▪ 4. Intentions: these measure the probability that
attitudes will be acted upon. The assumption is that
favourable attitudes will increase purchase intentions
 ▪ Choice criteria are the various features (and benefits)
a customer uses when evaluating products and
services.
✓ Choice criteria can be economic
✓ Social or personal.

Social norms such as Personal criteria concern

Choice convention and fashion can
also be important choice
how the product or service
relates to the individual
Criteria criteria, with some brands
being rejected as too
psychologically.

unconventional.
 3.3 Factors
affecting the
Consumer
Decision-Making
Process
 ▪ These can be classified under three
headings:
▪ 1. The buying situation.
▪ 2. Personal influences.
3.3 Factors ▪ 3. Social influences.
affecting the
Consumer
Decision-
Making
Process
 ✓Extensive problem-solving

✓Limited problem-solving

✓Automatic Response
The Buying
Situation
 ▪ Brand personality is the characterization
of brands as perceived by consumers.

Two-dimensional approach to
Personal understanding buyer psychology:
Influences 1. Dominant
2. Submissive
3. Warm
4. Hostile
▪ Q1: Dominant-hostile: these people are loud, talkative, demanding and forceful in their actions.
They tend to distrust salespeople
▪ Q2: Submissive-hostile: these people are cold, aloof and uncommunicative
▪ Q3: Submissive-warm: these people are extrovert, friendly, understanding, talkative and
positive-minded people who are not natural leaders.
▪ Q4: Dominant-warm: These people are adaptable and open minded but not afraid to express
their ideas and opinions. They tend to want proof of sales arguments and become impatient of
woolly answers.
Implicationsforselling

▪ Q1: To win the respect of a dominant-hostile person, a salesperson should do some actions, it would
involve sitting upright, maintaining eye contact, listening respectfully and answering directly.
▪ Q2: A salesperson should not attempt to dominate, but gradually try to gain their trust.
▪ Q3: The salesperson should satisfy their social needs by being warm and friendly. They should not
attempt to dominate, but should instead share the social experience
▪ Q4: Dominant-warm people consider respect more important than being liked. To gain respect, the
salesperson should match the Q4’s dominance level while maintaining a warm manner.
 ▪ Motivation

Perception
1. Selective exposure: only certain information sources may be sought and read.
2. Selective perception: only certain ideas, messages and information from those sources
may be perceived.
3. Selective retention: only some of them may be remembered.
 1. Young sophisticates: extravagant, experimental,
non-traditional; Young

2. Home-centred: conservative, less quality

conscious, demographically average, middle-class,
average income and education; lowest interest in
new products
Lifestyle
3. Traditional working-class: traditional, quality
conscious, unexperimental in food, enjoy cooking

4. Middle-aged sophisticates: experimental, not

traditional; middle-aged
5. Coronation Street housewives: quality
conscious, conservative, traditional

6. Self-confident: self-confident, quality

conscious, not extravagant; young, well
educated, owner-occupier, average income

7. Homely: bargain seekers, not self-confident,

houseproud

8. Penny-pinchers: self-confident, houseproud,

traditional, not quality conscious; 25–34 years
 Social influences on consumer decision-making
include:
➢Social class
➢Reference groups
➢Culture
➢Family
Social
Influences
▪ Reference group is used to indicate a group
of people that influences a person’s attitude
or behavior

▪ Culture refers to the traditions, taboos,

values and basic attitudes of the whole
society within which an individual lives

▪ The decision as to which product or brand to

purchase may be a group decision, with each
family member playing a distinct part.
 3.4
ORGANIZATIO
NAL BUYER
BEHAVIOR
 Organizational buyer behavior has usefully been broken
down into three elements by Fisher.
▪ 1. Structure: the ‘who’ factor – who participates in the
decision-making process and their particular roles.
3.4 ▪ 2. Process: the ‘how’ factor – the pattern of information
ORGANIZATIO getting, analysis, evaluation and decision-making which
takes place as the purchasing organization moves
NAL BUYER towards a decision.
BEHAVIOR ▪ 3. Content: the ‘what’ factor – the choice criteria used at
different stages of the process and by different
members of the decision-making unit
 The decision is in the hands of a decision-making unit (DMU), or
buying center as it is sometimes called. This is not necessarily a
fixed entity. Bonoma and Webster have identified six roles in the
structure of the DMU:
▪ 1. Initiators: those who begin the purchase process.
▪ 2. Users: those who actually use the product.
▪ 3. Deciders: those who have the authority to select the
supplier/model.
Structure ▪ 4. Influencers: those who provide information and add decision
criteria throughout the process.
▪ 5. Buyers: those who have authority to execute the contractual
arrangements.
▪ 6. Gatekeepers: those who control the flow of information, e.g.
secretaries who may allow or prevent access to a DMU member, or
a buyer whose agreement must be sought before a supplier can
contact other members of the DMU.
▪ The salesperson’s task is to identify and reach the key
members in order to convince them of the product’s
worth. Often, talking only to the purchasing officer will
be insufficient, since this may be only a minor influence
on which supplier is chosen. Salespeople need to avoid
two deadly sins:
▪ 1. Working within their ‘comfort zone’. This is where
they spend too much time with people they like and
feel comfortable with, but who are unimportant with
regard to which product to buy or which supplier to use.
▪ 2. Spending too much time with ‘nay Sayers’. These are
people who can say ‘no’ (the power of veto) but who do
not have the authority to say ‘yes’. It is the latter group,
i.e. the decision-makers, to whom most
communicational effort should be channeled.
Process
▪ 1. Need or problem of recognition. Needs and
problems may be recognized through either internal
or external factors. Internal recognition leads to
active behavior (internal/active). Problems which are
recognized internally but not be acted upon may be
termed as internal/passive.

• 2. Determination of characteristics, specification and

quantity of needed item. At this stage of the decision-
making process the DMU will draw up a description of
what is required. The ability of a salesperson to influence
the specifications can give their company an advantage
at later stages of the process. By persuading the buying
company to specify features that only their product
possesses (lockout criteria), the salesperson may
virtually have closed the sale at this stage.
▪ 3. Search for and qualification of potential sources. A great
deal of variation in the degree of search takes place in
organizational buying. Generally speaking, the cheaper, less
important the item and the more information the buyer
possesses, the less search takes place.

• 4. Acquisition and analysis of proposals. Having found a number of

companies which, perhaps through their technical expertise and
general reputation, are considered to be qualified to supply the
product, proposals will be called for and analysis of them undertaken.
▪ 5. Evaluation of proposals and selection
of suppliers. Each proposal will be
evaluated in the light of the criteria
deemed to be important to each DMU
member.

• 6. Selection of an order routine. Next the

details of payment and delivery are drawn up.
Usually this is conducted by the purchasing
officer. In some buying decisions this stage is
merged into stages 4 and 5 when delivery is
an important consideration in selecting a
supplier.

• 7. Performance feedback and evaluation. This

may be formal, where a purchasing
department draws up an evaluation form for
user departments to complete, or informal
through everyday conversation.
 ▪ This aspect of organizational buyer behavior
refers to the choice criteria used by members of
the DMU to evaluate supplier proposals.
Organizational buying is characterized by both
functional (economic) and psychological
(emotive) criteria.

Content
Quality
The emergence of total quality management (TQM) as a key
aspect of organizational life reflects the importance of
quality in evaluating a supplier’s products and services.
Many buying organizations are unwilling to trade quality for
price. In particular, buyers are looking for consistency of
product or service quality so that end products (e.g. motor
cars) are reliable, inspection costs reduced and production
processes run smoothly.

Price and life-cycle costs

For materials and components of similar specification and quality,
price becomes a key consideration. For standard items, such as
ball-bearings, price may be critical to making a sale given that a
number of suppliers can meet delivery and specification
requirements. Increasingly buyers take into account life-cycle
costs, which may include productivity savings, maintenance costs
and residual values, as well as initial purchase price, when
evaluating products. By calculating life-cycle costs with a buyer,
new perceptions of value may be achieved.
 Continuity of supply
One of the major costs to a company is a disruption of a production run.
Delays of this kind can mean costly machine down-time and even lost sales.
Continuity of supply is therefore a prime consideration in many purchase
situations. Supplier companies who can guarantee deliveries and realize
their promises can achieve a significant differential advantage in the
marketplace. Organizational customers are demanding close relationships
with ‘accredited suppliers’ who can guarantee reliable supply, perhaps on a
just-in-time basis.

Perceived risk
Perceived risk can come in two forms: functional risk, such as
uncertainty with respect to product or supplier performance,
and psychological risk, such as criticism from work colleagues.
Buyers often reduce uncertainty by gathering information
about competing suppliers, checking the opinions of
important others in the buying company, only buying from
familiar and/or reputable suppliers and by spreading risk
through multiple sourcing.
Office politics
Political factions within the buying company may also
influence the outcome of a purchase decision.
Interdepartmental conflict may manifest itself in the
formation of competing ‘camps’ over the purchase of a
product or service. Because department X favors supplier A,
department Y automatically favors supplier B. The outcome
not only has purchasing implications but also political
implications for the departments and individuals concerned.

Personal liking/disliking
A buyer may personally like one salesperson more than another
and this may influence supplier choice, particularly when
competing products are very similar. Even when supplier
selection is on the basis of competitive bidding, it is known for
purchasers to help salespeople they like to ‘be competitive’.
Obviously, perception is important in all organizational purchases,
as how someone behaves depends upon the perception of the
situation. As with consumer behavior, three selective processes
may be at work on buyers: • selective exposure: only certain
information sources may be sought;
• selective perception: only certain information may be perceived;
• selective retention: only some information may be remembered.
 3.5 FACTORS
AFFECTING
ORGANIZATION
AL BUYER
BEHAVIOUR
There are three factors that influence the composition of the
DMU, the nature of the decision-making process and the
criteria used to evaluate product offerings.

decision-making unit (DMU)

 The buy classes affect organizational
buying in the following ways.

✓First, the structure of the DMU changes.

For a straight re-buy, possibly only the
The buy class
purchasing officer is involved, whereas
for a new buy, senior management,
engineers, production managers and
purchasing officers are likely to be
involved.
✓Second, the decision-making
process is likely to be much
longer as the buy class
changes from a straight re-buy
to a modified re-buy and then,
a new task.
✓Third, in terms of influencing
DMU members, they are likely
to be much more receptive in
new task and modified re-buy
situations than for straight re-
buys.
▪ Value analysis and life-cycle cost
calculations are other methods of moving
purchases from a straight re-buy to a
modified re-buy situation. Value analysis,
which can be conducted by either
supplier or buyer, is a method of cost
reduction in which components are
examined to see if they can be made
more cheaply.
▪ Life-cycle cost analysis seeks to move the cost focus
from the initial purchase price to the total cost of
owning and using a product. There are three types of
life-cycle costs:
• purchase price

• start-up costs
• post-purchase costs.
▪ Life-cycle cost appeals can be powerful motivators. For
example, if the out supplier can convince the customer
organization that its product has significantly lower
post-purchase costs than the in-supplier, despite a
slightly higher purchase price, it may win the order.
The product
type

This classification is based upon a customer’s perspective – how the product is

used – and may be applied to identify differences in organizational buyer
behavior.
 ▪ A purchase is likely to be perceived as
important to the buying organization
when it involves large sums of money,
when the cost of making the wrong
decision, for example in lost production,
Importance of is high and when there is considerable
purchase to uncertainty about the outcome of
buying alternative offerings.

organization
Importance of
purchase to ▪ Thus extensive marketing effort is likely
buying to be required, but great opportunities
organization present themselves to sales teams who
work with buying organizations to
convince them that their offering has the
best payoff.
Importance of
purchase to ▪ In addition, guarantees of delivery
buying dates and after-sales service may
organization be necessary when buyer
uncertainty regarding these factors
is high.
 3.6
DEVELOPMENTS
IN PURCHASING
PRACTICE
DEVELOPMENTS IN PURCHASING PRACTICE
Just-in-time (JIT) purchasing
Aims to minimize stocks by organizing a supply system which
provides materials and components as they are required.

Purchasing inventory and inspection

costs can be reduced, product design can
be improved, delivery streamlined,
production down-time reduced and the
quality of the finished item enhanced.
Centralized purchasing
Encourages purchasing specialists

Localized buying tends to focus on

short-term cost and profit
considerations whereas centralized
purchasing places more emphasis on
long-term supply relationships.
 Systems purchasing
Is the desire by buyers to acquire complete
systems rather than individual components.
Systems sellers Systems selling
Responsibility over: Sellers to create value
for customers by cutting
• Inventory control costs, and/or improving
• Production control systems performance by
• IT developing innovative
• Telecommunications solutions.
networks
Hardware or Physical or
product tangible
components products
Software, or Knowledge or
service intangible
components human efforts
Reverse marketing
1. It provides the
This process whereby the buyer attempts opportunity to
to persuade the supplier to provide develop a
stronger and
exactly what the organization wants.
longer-lasting
relationship
with the
The purchaser customer.
takes the
initiative in
approaching 2. Second, it could
new or existing be a source of
suppliers and new product
opportunities
persuading that may be
them to meet developed to a
their supply broader
customer base
requirements. later on.
Leasing
A lease is a contract by which the owner of an asset (e.g. a car) grants the right
to use the asset for a period of time to another party in exchange for payment of
rent.
Financial (full payment) A crucial marketing decision is the setting of leasing rates,
leases which should be set with the following in mind:
As a longer-term arrangement (a) the desired relative attractiveness of leasing versus buying
that is fully amortized over the
(the supplier may wish to promote/discourage buying compared
term of the contract.
with leasing)
(b) the net present value of lease payments versus outright
Operating leases
purchase
(rental agreements)
(c) the tax advantages of leasing versus buying to the customer
Are usually higher than (d) the rates being charged by competition
financial lease rates since they (e) the perceived advantages of spreading payments to
are shorter-term customers
(f) any other perceived customer benefits, e.g. maintenance and
insurance costs being assumed by the supplier.
RELATIONS
HIP
MANAGEM
ENT
 RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
The Industrial Marketing and Purchasing
Group developed the interaction
approach (views these relationships as
taking place
between two active parties) to explain the
complexity of relationship management.
Close relationships in
organizational markets are Buyers are increasingly
inevitable as changing treating trusted suppliers as
technology, shorter product life- strategic partners, sharing
cycles and increased foreign information and drawing on
competition place marketing and their expertise when
purchasing departments in key developing cost-efficient,
strategic roles. quality-based new products.
CONCLUSIO
N
▪ Understanding buyer behaviour has important implications for salespeople and sales
management. Recognition that buyers purchas products in order to overcome problems and satisfy
needs implies that an effective sales approach will involve the discovery of these needs on the part
of the salesperson. Only then can they sell from the range of products marketed by the company
the offering that best meets these needs. When the decision-making unit is complex, as in many
organisational buying situations, the salesperson must attempt to identify and reach key members
of the DMU in order to persuade them of the product’s benefits. They must also realise that
different members may use different criteria to evaluate the product and thus may need to modify
their sales presentation accordingly.