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Consumer Behavior

by a business for its own use, they are considered business taste good, Laura’s Wholesome Junk Foods handed out
products. Some items, such as flour and pickup trucks, bite-sized samples packed in plastic resealable tubs, which
can fall into either classification, depending on how they they subsequently named and trademarked Bite-lettes.
are used. Flour purchased by a supermarket for resale is What happened next surprised both Trice and Howard
classified as a consumer good, but flour purchased by a Weinthal, director of product development. “Consumers
bakery to make pastries is classified as a business product. loved the Bite-lettes and kept asking how they might buy
A pickup truck bought for personal use is a consumer them. So we stopped making bars after 4 months and shut
product; if purchased to transport lawn mowers for a lawn down for 6 months to find a place that could make the
service, it is a business product. Bite-lettes for us. We didn’t know if it was going to work.
SEE ALSO Business Marketing We thought we might be out of business” (Trice, 2005).
Figuring out not only what they wanted, but who
would buy it, why they would buy it, where they would
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Boone, Louis E., and Kurtz, David L. (2005). Contemporary buy it, and how often they would buy it, is the corner-
marketing 2006. Eagan, MN: Thomson South-Western. stone of understanding consumer behavior. Consumer
Hoffman, K. Douglass (2006). Marketing principles and best behavior is the study of people: how we buy, consume and
practices (3rd ed.). Mason, OH: Thomson South-Western. dispose of products. There were approximately 295 mil-
Kotler, Philip, and Armstrong, Gary (2006). Principles of market- lion people in the United States alone in 2004. Each of us
ing (11th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice- is a consumer of hundreds of products every day. As con-
Hall. sumers, we can benefit from a better understanding of
Pride, William M., and Ferrell, O. C. (2006). Marketing concepts how we make our decisions so that we can make wiser
and strategies. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ones. Marketers can benefit from an understanding of
Solomon, Michael R., Marshall, Greg W., and Stuart, Elnora W. consumer behavior so that they can better predict what
(2006). Marketing: Real people, real choices (4th ed.). Upper consumers want and how best to offer it to them. Trice
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice-Hall.
and Weinthal listened to consumer requests, created a new
portion-controlled concept, and scrapped the full-sized
Thomas R. Baird energy bar. In 2005 Laura’s Wholesome Junk Food sold
Earl C. Meyer Bite-lettes to more than 180 stores nationwide.
Sharon K. Slick
There are two major forces that shape who we are
and what we buy. Our personal motives, attitudes, and
decision-making abilities guide our consumption behav-
ior. At the same time, our families, cultural background,
CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
the ads we see on television, and the sites we visit on the
While in medical school, Laura Trice’s one major com- Internet influence our thoughts and actions (see Figure 1).
plaint about living a vegan lifestyle and following an
animal-product-free diet was the lack of “great tasting
sweets.” Rather than sublimating her craving for junk UNDERSTANDING CONSUMERS:
food, she came up with a cookie recipe that she found sat- INTERNAL FACTORS
isfied her sweet tooth. After graduation from medical Our consumption behavior is a function of who we are as
school, Trice found a business partner who had been a individuals. Our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and pat-
self-trained vegetarian chef for over twenty years and terns of behavior determine what we buy, when we buy it,
together they started Laura’s Wholesome Junk Food in and how we use it. Internal factors have a major impact on
2001 (http://www.LaurasWholesomeJunkFood.com). consumer behavior.
The concept was to provide snacks that tasted as great as
junk food—something most people, especially the two Consumer Motivation. A marketer’s job is to figure out
founders, secretly loved—that also used ingredients which what needs and wants the consumer has, and what moti-
were more wholesome than those used in regular prod- vates the consumer to purchase. Motivation is the drive
ucts. that initiates all our consumption behaviors, and con-
In July 2002 Laura’s Wholesome Junk Food released sumers have multiple motives, or goals. Some of these are
their first line of energy bars priced and sized to compete overt, such as a physiological thirst that motivates a con-
with the energy bars then on the market. Their first orders sumer to purchase a soft drink or the need to purchase a
were from two small stores, a vending machine company new suit for an interview. Other motives are more
and a coffee chain. To provide samples to convince con- obscure, such as a student’s need to plug in to an iPod or
sumers that something with healthful ingredients could wear designer clothes to gain social approval.

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