Understanding the behavior of the target market is the essential task of the marketing managers as consumers vary in age,

income, educational levels, mobility patterns and tastes. Consumer behavior is the study of how people buy, what they buy, when they buy and why they buy. It blends elements from psychology, sociology, sociopsychology, anthropology and economics. It also tries to assess influences on the consumer from groups such as family, friends, reference groups, and society in general. Consumer behavior is also the process and activities people engage in when searching for, selecting, purchasing, using, evaluating, and disposing of products and services so as to satisfy their needs and desires.

Stage Problem Recognition Information Search Information Evaluation

Brief description The consumer perceives a need and becomes motivated to solve a problem. The consumer searches for information required to make a purchase decision Motivation

Perception

The consumer compares various brands and products

Attitude formation

Decision Post-purchase evaluation

The consumer decides which brand to purchase The consumer evaluates their purchase decision

Integration

Learning

THE GOAL OF FASHION MARKETING

Sensitive handling of genuine customer complaints can help retain goodwill and avoid negative word of mouth communication. A basic psychological law states that behavior that is rewarded is likely to be repeated. Satisfied customers are likely to become repeat customers. The goal of fashion marketing is to move customers from (a) to (d).

 a) Promiscuous - will shop around for the best deal b) Occasional will sometimes buy from us c) Loyal will usually buy from us d) Insistent will only buy from us

INFLUENCE OF FACTORS ON BUYING

CULTURAL INFLUENCES 1) CULTURE : - The growing child acquires a set of values, perception, preferences and behaviors through a process of socialization involving the family and other key institutions. A tribal in a jungle would not look at a computer as anything other than a curiosity and no one would buy it in the tribe. 2) SUB- CULTURE : - Each culture consists of a small subculture that provides more specific identification for its members. a) Nationality Groups :- Indians, Americans, Chinese, etc. b) Religious Groups :- Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Christians, etc. c) Racial Groups :- Blacks, Orientals, etc. d) Geographical Areas :- North India and South India, etc. These factors will influence the consumers food preferences, clothing choices, recreation and career aspirations.

 3) SOCIAL CLASS : a) People within each social class tend to behave alike than persons from different classes. b) Persons perceived as occupying inferior or superior positions according to their social class c) A persons social class is indicated by a number of variable such as occupation, income, wealth, education and value orientation. d) Individuals can move from one social class to another up or down during their lifetime.

 SOCIAL FACTORS : 1) REFERENCE GROUPS :- Consists of all the groups that have a direct or indirect influence on the persons behavior. Groups having a direct influence on a person called membership groups. a) The primary group with which the relation is informal and interaction is fairly continuous are the family, friends, neighbors. b) The secondary group is more formal and tend to have less continuous interaction like religious, professional, trade unions, etc. c) groups to which an individual is not a member also influence people are called aspirational groups d) A disassociate group is one whose values or behavior an individual rejects.

 2) FAMILY :- Constitute the most influential reference group in shaping a buyers behavior. a) The family of orientation : - Consists of ones parents from one acquires religion, politics, economics, ambition, self- worth and love. Even after interaction with parents is reduced, the parents influence on the unconscious behavior can be significant. b) The family of procreation :- Consists of ones spouse and children has a more direct influence on the buyers behavior. Some typical product patterns are : a) Husband Dominant :- Insurance, Car, electronic gadgets, etc. b) Wife Dominant :- Washing machine, Kitchenware, Kitchen consumables, Garments, Cosmetics, etc. c) Equal :- Vacation, Housing, Entertainment, Kids schooling, etc.

 3) ROLE AND STATUS (Social groups) :- A person participates in many groups throughout life : family, organization, classes and clubs, etc. A role consists of activities that a person is expected to perform by other members of a group. So people choose products that communicate their role and status in society. 4) OPINION LEADERSHIP:- This refers to the degree of influence exerted by someone when a consumer is faced with a choice. It is taken as a way of encouraging the diffusion of the product range.

 5) SOCIAL STRATIFICATION:- Is the division of people according to economic position in society, whether they are aware of that position or not. Terms like elite class, upper middle class, middle class, lower class and below poverty line represent this point. 6) Diffusion of Innovation:- An innovation is defined as anything that the consumer perceives to be new. Different individuals adopt new fashion products with differing degrees of enthusiasm and at different times. The process by which the acceptance of an innovation is spread by communication to members of a social system is known as diffusion.

 Consumers may be classified based on their fashion adoption speeds as innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards (extremely slow or no adoption). The major factors that influence the rate of diffusion are: a) Relative advantage the more immediate and important the benefits, the faster the rate of diffusion. b) Compatibility an innovation must match cultural values, beliefs and expectations. c) Possibility of trials the ability to try on the product or easily exchange what cannot be exchanged be tried is a key factor.

 d) Observability or communicability the ease with which information about an innovation is transmitted. e) The complexity of the innovation the more complex in terms of understanding and use, the slower the diffusion. f) Perceived risk the greater the risk, the slower the diffusion. g) Type of target market some groups are more willing to accept change than others, e.g. the youth

 Each brand and product has a status symbol potential. PERSONAL FACTORS : 1) AGE AND LIFE CYCLE STAGE :- Peoples clothes, food, furniture, recreation, etc. are all age related also. Marketers often choose life cycle groups as their target market. Psychological life cycle stages also form a part of the same. 2) OCCUPATION :- A company president will buy expensive clothes, air tickets and club membership whereas a blue collar employee will buy a little lesser brand and value products than him, and the subordinate under the blue collar employee will buy even lesser than that.

 3) ECONOMIC CIRCUMSTANCES :- Occupation of a person has an influence on his or her economic conditions to quite an extent. The economic circumstances consists of their expendable income, savings, assets, borrowing power, and attitude towards spending versus savings. 4) LIFE STYLE :- A persons life style is the persons pattern of living in the world as expressed in the persons activities, interests and opinions. It represents something beyond a persons social class and personality. 5) PERSONALITY AND SELF- CONCEPT :personality is usually described in terms of such traits as self confidence, dominance, autonomy deference, sociability and adaptability. A strong relationship exists between the personality types and product/brand choices. E.g. if the picture of us carries us like sports personalities then automatically one would be more inclined towards sporty products.

 PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS : 1) MOTIVATION :- Biogenetic needs like hunger,

thirst and discomfort become a source of motivation for a buyer to purchase a product than psychogenetic needs like recognition, esteem, etc. A popular classification for motivation is Maslows Hierarchy of needs:
SELF ACTUALIZATION
ESTEEM NEEDS SOCIAL NEEDS SAFETY AND SECURITY PHYSIOLOGICAL NEEDS

 Maslows hierarchy of needs states that motives are organized in a hierarchy and that only when lowerlevel needs are met do higher- level needs become important: Physiological needs like food, water, air and shelter come first. Next comes safety and security needs Then are social needs to be accepted by ones family and friends Esteem needs to satisfy the ego; they allow the customer to think well of himself/ herself, and have others hold a high opinion of them. Self actualization, embraces creativity and achievement. It is different for different people. For one, it may be designing a collection of best selling garments, and so on.

 2) PERCEPTION :- How the motivated person acts is influenced by the individuals perception of the situation. Two people in the same situation may act quite differently because they perceive the situation differently. Perception is the process whereby buyers select, organize, and interpret simple stimuli into a meaningful and coherent picture of the world. Sensation is the response of our sense organs to simple stimuli, whereas perception is the psychological consequence of sensation. The stages in the perceptual process are:

 a) Selective exposure This is the narrowing of the opportunities for experience of marketing stimuli. Fashion marketers must ensure that the correct media and location for retail outlets are selected to maximize the opportunities for selective exposure. b) Selective attention In this stage, the range of possibilities is further narrowed because the consumer only pays attention to some marketing stimuli, and not to others. Consumer factors that determine attention to marketing stimuli : existing attitudes, attention span, emotional states, motives and expectancy.

 c) Selective distortion:- This implies that consumers interpret stimuli in a manner that is consistent with existing attitudes. The perceptual process operates to enable the consumer to maintain a coherent view of the world. Too many contradictions to existing views make the consumers life difficult, and the consumer would much rather ignore stimuli which create such effects. d) Selective retention:- This is the phenomenon of consumers remembering information about fashion marketers and their products in a highly subjective way; in terms of current priorities and concerns. Thus, consumers try to justify their choices, and highlighting the negative points of competing products/brands which the consumer chose not to buy.

 3) LEARNING :- Is any relatively permanent change in buying behavior that is a result of practice and experience. When people act, they learn and learning describes changes in an individuals behavior arising from experience. If the experience is something rewarding, the person will repeat the response. This is known as reinforcement. E.g. a person buys a Revlon lipstick is happy with the product, then she is likely to buy a Revlon nail enamel, and then a hair color and so on. Two main sources of learning are the family and peer groups. Most learning can be classified into: a) Association learning:- This occurs when a marketing stimulus and the consumer response are repeatedly paired. A lower level learning such as learning brand names, occurs at this level. When behavior is rewarded, it tends to be repeated and when not it diminishes in frequency.

 This implies that fashion marketers have to create association learning on the part of consumers in favor of their brands/ products by creating stimuli that encourage brand loyalty. b) Cognitive learning:- It assumes that consumers reason and reflect upon the relationship between marketing stimuli and consumer response. Consumers do think about some purchases in detail and may engage in mental processes to try to reach a reasoned conclusion before purchasing. The cognitive approach concentrates on knowing how consumers make connections between product features and their buying criteria and rules used by customers to actually buy the product.

 4) BELIEFS AND ATTITUDES :- Through acting and learning people acquire beliefs and attitudes. A belief is a descriptive thought that a person holds about something. It may be based on knowledge, opinion or faith. These beliefs make up the product or brand images, and people act on their images. An attitude describes a persons enduring favorable or unfavorable evaluations, emotional feelings and action tendencies towards some object or idea. There are three main components of attitudes:

 a) Cognitive dimension:- this refers to the knowledge or information possessed by the consumer about the fashion product, service, image, store or prices. The knowledge may not be accurate or complete, but it is believed to be the truth by the consumer. b) Affective dimension :- This is concerned with consumer feelings about fashion marketing, offerings and is measured in terms such as like and dislike, or good or bad. c) Co native dimension:- It provides the behavioral aspect and is usually expressed in terms of an intention, or not, to buy within a specified period of time. Thus, a consumer may be aware of a new range of nail colors being introduced by a cosmetics company, may like the range, and may intend to buy two of the new colors within the next four days.

 It is important to remember that attitudes may emerge or change positively or negatively after purchase. Post purchase doubt over a new purchase (called dissonance) becomes a motivator for the consumer, who acts to reduce dissonance. It can be reduced in a number of ways: a) Changing behavior- exchanging one color for the other b) Changing attitudes- deciding that the brand is not as good as was previously thought. c) Revoking the decision- asking for refund d) Seeking extra consonant information- asking a friend to reassure you that you made the right choice e) Avoiding dissonant information- not visiting other shops in case a lower price is seen for the same item

 5) Consumer personality:- Personality is the particular configuration of qualities that make a person unique. Two main approaches to personality are considered: a) Psychographics Fashion marketers try to define consumer types based upon consumers activities, interests, and opinions (AIOs), and try to predict buyer behavior of each consumer type for specific fashion products. This is called psychographics, or identifying consumers lifestyles. However, these are changing rapidly, and therefore becoming increasingly difficult to research in depth. b) Self concept For fashion marketer, the self concept is important because it is one of the most obvious ways a consumer may express him or herself and show how they would like others to judge them.

 The self concept has many dimensions such as: i) The self image, which is how a person sees himself or herself ii) The ideal self image, which is how the person would like to see himself or herself iii) The social self image, which is how the person thinks others see him or her iv) the ideal social self image, which is how the person would like others to see him or her

 THE BUYING DECISION PROCESS :For many products it is easy to identify the buyer. It is said Men normally select their after shave lotion and Women select their lipstick. Other products involve more than one decision maker. We can distinguish 5 roles people play in the buying decision process.

 1) INITIATOR :- A person who first suggests the idea of buying a particular product or service. 2) INFLUENCER :- A person whose views are important in making the final decision. 3) DECIDER:- A person who decides on any component of the buying decision : when to buy, what to buy, where to buy, etc. 4) BUYER :- The actual purchaser. 5) USER :- A person who uses or consumes the product or service.

STAGES IN THE BUYING PROCESS :1) NEED RECOGNITION 2) INFORMATION SEARCH a) Personal sources b) Commercial services c) Public sources d) Experimental sources 3) EVALUATION OF ALTERNATIVES The consumer sees each product as a bundle of attributes and is seeking certain benefits from his choice. E.g. the attributes of interest in a toothpaste can be its taste, freshness of breath, price and effectiveness.

 4) PURCHASE DECISION :- Depends upon two factors : a) Attitudes of Others b) Unanticipated Situational Factors 5) POST PURCHASE BEHAVIOR :- After purchasing the product, the consumer will experience some level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The consumer behavior is complex and difficult to understand so it is the marketer who has to be smart enough to understand and act upon it in time.

THE ORGANIZATIONAL BUYER

All the concepts discussed above hold true, whether the buyer is an individual or an organization. Organizations purchase fashion products for their employees (such as uniforms, laptops,, mobile phones, etc.) There are some differences between the individual buyer and the organizational buyer. These are: 1) They buy in bulk 2) The organizational buyer is better trained, better informed and accountable for decisions 3) The organizational buyer is part of a buying team that is more rational than individual consumers. 4) Organizational buying usually involves more formality with regard to explicit buying criteria or vendor products and prices.

THANKS