Guidelines for Consumer Behavior Assignment

Guidelines for Consumer Behavior Assignment

The purpose of this exercise is to broaden your understanding of consumer behaviour (Chapters 5 and 6) by bringing you face to face with a customer. The first step is to find at least two persons who have recently bought a product in your chosen category for the project. The persons should not be a part of FORE faculty, staff or student community. You are then to conduct an in-depth interview of at least 30 minutes for each one of them. The goal of the interview is to understand the consumer decision process and see its utility to a marketing manager. You need not create a questionnaire for this. A list of possible questions is given below. It is reasonably exhaustive. Individuals can choose the relevant portions to  stimulate a lively and open discussion and get insights.

1. Decision making unit

1. What segment did he/she belong to?
2. Who was the buyer and who were the users?
3. What role did others play in the purchase decision process?

1. Information Search

1. What was the influence of mass media in the decision process?
2. What was the role of internet in information search?

1. Purchase motivation

1. What problems did the product/service solve?
2. What functions would it facilitate?
3. What attributes seemed important?

1. Characterise the decision

1. Was it a first time decision or a repeat purchase?
2. Was it a careful or a casual decision?
3. Was the amount of deliberation appropriate to the decision?
4. How many alternatives were evaluated? Why those?
5. Why were other alternatives rejected?

1. Place of purchase

1. Which came first – where to buy or what to buy?
2. Where was the product bought?
3. Main reason for choice of outlet.
4. What was the role of packaging and  product display in the decision process?

1. What risks were seen to modify or postpone the purchase decision?
2. Post Purchase Dissonance

1. Was there any?
2. What action did the consumer take?

Each student will have to submit a four to five page report on the assignment.  The report is due at the beginning of the fourth session. Any late submissions will invoke penalties. The groups can then collate the individual findings and include the same in the final report.