DEFINITION: BUYING MOTIVE

Buying motive is the motive to persuade the desires of people so that they buy a particular good
or service. Buying motive relates to the feelings and emotions of people which generates a desire
to purchase. Any person does not buy a product or service just because of excellent salesman
pitch but he does also due to the desire generated within him towards the product or service.

Importance of buying motive

Understanding the buying motive of a customer is essential for a company as it helps the
company to target the customer better. Buying motive means that the customer requires a
particular product to fulfill a certain need. No matter how good a product is or how good the
marketing is, unless the customer has a need it would not matter. This makes buying motive
extremely important in business.

Motive and instincts are completely different keywords. Motives are voluntary made such that a
particular stimulus will take place where as instincts are involuntary and generally inborn quality
of a person. Ex: Thirst is an instinct but aspire to buy a bottle of mineral water to quench thirst is
a motive.

Types of Buying motives

Buying motives can be categorized as follows:

1) Product Buying Motives

2) Patronage Buying Motives

Product Buying Motives

Product buying motives are the factors or characteristics of a product that persuade a person to
purchase only that product instead of other products available in the market. The factors can be
physical appearance like design, size, color, price, shape etc. or can be psychological features
like status, desire to reduce danger etc. Product buying motives is divided into two categories:
Emotional and Rational.

1. Emotional Product Buying Motives

If a person purchases a product without thinking much rationally (i.e. with less reasoning) then
he or she is said to have persuaded by emotional product buying motives. There are around ten
kinds of emotional product buying motives: prestige, imitation, affection, comfort, sexual
attraction, ambition, distinctiveness, pleasure, hunger and thirst, habit.

2. Rational Product Buying Motives

If a person purchases a product after thinking rationally (i.e. logically deciding) then he or she is
said to have persuaded by rational product buying motives. There are around eight kinds of
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rational product buying motives: security, economy, low price, suitability, utility, durability,
convenience.

Patronage Buying Motives

Patronage buying motives are the factors or characteristics that influence a person to purchase a
product from particular shop instead of purchasing from other shops selling the same product. It
can be divided into two categories: Emotional and Rational

1. Emotional Patronage Buying Motives

If a person purchases a product from a particular shop without thinking much about other shops,
then he or she is said to have persuaded by emotional patronage buying motives.

There are around six kinds of emotional patronage buying motives: ambience of shop, showcase
of products, recommendations by others, prestige, habit, imitation.

2. Rational Patronage Buying Motives

If a person purchases a product from a shop after complete analysis and reasoning then he or she
is said t have persuaded by rational patronage buying motives.

There are around eight rational patronage buying motives: convenience, low price, credit
availability, more services, efficiency of the seller, wide variety, treatment, reputation.

Hence, this concludes the definition of Buying Motive along with its overview.

BUYING ROLES

Definition
Buying roles refer to the activities that one or more person(s) might perform in a buying decision. Six
buying roles can be distinguished:

1. Initiator, the person who first suggests or thinks of the idea of buying the particular product or
service
2. Influencer, a person whose views influence other members of the buying center in making the
final decision
3. Decider, the person who ultimately determines any part of or the entire buying decision—
whether to buy, what to buy, how to buy, or where to buy
4. Buyer, the person who handles the paper work of the actual purchase
5. User, the person(s) who consumes or uses the product or service
6. Gatekeeper, the person(s) who controls information or access, or both, to decision makers and
influencers (It also is used to indicate the individual who controls decision making by controlling
the purchase process. In a traditional family, the mother often functions as the gatekeeper

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between the child and his/her exposure to the mass media and the purchase of toys or
products. In an organization, the purchasing agent is often the gatekeeper between the end user
and the vendor of products or services.)[1]

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Product Disposition

A final topic of interest concerns the disposition of what the consumer has purchased. Most of
the consumer behavior literature has ignored this subject. However, it is important from a public
perspective as well as from a marketing management orientation to better understand how
consumers make disposition decisions for a product.

Disposition alternatives and Determinants:

There are various alternatives for disposing of a product. In addition, the method of disposition
may vary considerably across products. For example while bicycles tend to be given away, this is
not true of phonograph records which are usually thrown away or stored. At present little is
known about the factors that influence the disposition choice made by the consumer. The
following categories of factors have been suggested however.

1) Psychological characteristics of the decision maker: personality, attitudes, emotions,

perception, learning, creativity, intelligence, social class, level of risk tolerance peer pressure,
social conscience and so on. Although consumer demographic variables have not proved to be
very enlightening in understanding disposition behavior Lifestyle factors have proved to be
moderately useful.

2) Factors intrinsic to the product condition age, size, style, value color, power source of the
product, technological innovations adaptability, reliability, durability initial post, replacement
cost, and so on.

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3) Situational factors extrinsic to the product finances storage space, urgency, fashion changes,
circumstances of acquisition (gift versus purchase) functional use, economics (demand and
supply) legal, considerations (giving to avoid taxes) and so on.

Disposal of products often occurs in connection with the changing roles of consumers. As role
transition occurs, consumers may dispose of their possessions in order to facilitate or validate
both role and status changes thus enhancing and solidifying their new self concepts and social
role identities. Some of the role transitions consumers may encounter are: leaving parents,
graduating taking a job, marrying, having children, moving, divorcing, changing jobs, and
retiring. These role transitions represent changes in the plays, parts, scripts and props in our
lives; Disposal of products facilitates our movements to new plays, parts, scripts and props and
allows us to enact new roles.

It has been suggested too that consumer product disposition is actually a process involving the
steps of problem recognition search and evaluation disposition decision and post disposition
outcomes.

It is interesting for the marketer to speculate using these reference frames on the various
possibilities for consumer product disposition as in the following situation:

Consider a wristwatch which still runs but is no longer stylish. The consumer is faced with a first
level decision; keep it, get rid of it permanently or get rid of it temporarily. Assume that he
decides to keep it because of his thriftiness (psychological characteristics), he could have also
decided to keep it because although it was not stylish it was still very reliable (product
characteristics) are because he had no money for another one (situational factor). At some later
time, the old watch is again brought to mind. He may decide to get rid of it permanently this
time, because his status needs are no longer met by the watch (psychological characteristics) the
band is worn (product characteristics) and /or he has too many old watches in his dresser drawer
(situational factor). At the second level he may decide to give it away to a charitable institution
so that he claims a tax deduction.

Marketing Implications:

The implication of the consumer product disposition process reflects on several areas of
marketing. There are implications from a public policy perspective as well as from a strategy
perspective. The public policy effects of disposition are many. For example the effects of
disposition choice on the environment include the long run effects of a throwaway lifestyle, the
resources wasted when an item is discarded and the resource depleted when its replaced. Thus,
study of the many problems of polluting and littering could be better addressed by considering
consumer disposition.

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