For some products the different brands available are virtually indistinguishable
apart from their brand-names and possibly their packaging
(e.g. petrol, or some brands of washing powder or of cigarettes), in
others the “brands” are clearly different (e.g. breakfast cereals) or there
are different “varieties” of the same brand (e.g. different flavours),
while in yet other cases there may be two or more distinct ~~JWS of
product competing directly (soups in cans and soups in foil packets).
Some products have a single end-use and others have a variety of
different end-uses (e.g. butter is used for cooking, frying, baking, and to
put on bread). Some end-uses can be satisfied by only one product (e.g.
petrol), while others are open to a variety of products (e.g. eggs and
bacon and/or cereals for breakfast, or neither).
Shopping habits for different products and retail availability also
greatly vary. Some may be bought nearly every day as demand requires
(break, milk, or cigarettes), some are mainly bought at most once a
week, often as part of a general weekly purchase trip for household
needs. Some are always kept in stock in the household and some are
only bought again some time after the initial purchase has run out.
Grocery outlets usually sell several different brands of the same product
(including possibly the retailer’s own “private label” version), but
may not stock the particular brand required. ln contrast, a given brand
of petrol is usually only available from a solus-site outlet but is then
always “in stock”. The extent of retail availability is often correlated
with total sales or market-share, and here different brands differ widely,
with the market-leader often having 30% or more of the market, whilst
small brands may account for only 1% or less.
Promotional support (advertising, special offers,, etc.) tends to vary
greatly by product and brand. It is usually much heavier for marketleaders
than for smaller-selling brands, and differs also in type and
content. Consumer attitudes to different products and brands may
therefore also differ.
Individual consumers differ greatly in their consumption levels of
particular products or brands, quite apart from obvious factors like
household size. Some households consume several tins of soup per week
every week, and many others only buy a few tins in a year. Some
people mostly buy one single brand, pack-size, variety or whatever,
while others switch around a great deal.
The buyer’s role tends also to vary. Purchases made by the housewife,
for example, may be made primarily for her own usage (e.g.
laundry products), or for the family as a whole (many food products),
or with individual family-member’s tastes predominating (as perhaps
Consumer Behaviour 5
with types of breakfast cereals or toothpaste), or for someone else’s
usage altogether (as with pet-foods).
It is clear from this brief review that there are many different buying
situations and a possibly almost bewildering set of choices and decisions
which the buyer has to make. But in as far as the consumer is dealing
with frequently-bought and low-priced items, the amount of risk involved
in the individual purchasing transaction is low and there is ample
opportunity to develop habits, to simplify the repetitive choice-situation.
Logically, when a buyer is choosing between different manufacturers’
brands which are of more or less identical product-formulation,
pricing and availability, it might appear equally “rational” either to buy
the same brand as before or to buy a different. brand. Empirically, the
finding is that most people tend to develop habits of buying one or
some small number of brands, each fairly regularly.
A simplifying tendency towards brand-loyalty and repeat-buying
appears to exist in practice. What its origins and causes are in psycho7
logical terms (e.g. +risk-reduction”, “brand-image differentiation”,
“advertising”, “segmentation”, “learning”, “cognitive dissonance”,
“reinforcement”, etc.) is beyond the intended scope of this book, and
is in any case still largely unclear *. First we need to understand rather
precisely what it is that we would want to explain - i.e. how people
buy, before we can succesfully consider why. A theory is needed at this
stage which describes and interrelates, rather than one which aims to
provide instant explanation.
The results reported here still do not say why consumers buy a
particular product, or why they choose one brand rather than another.
Instead, if in a given time-period a certain number of people buy a
particular brand, the results show how they do this, and with what
other facts this ties in. For example, the number of people who buy a
particular brand at all in a given period is related to how often they buy
it, to how many additional buyers of the brand there will be in some
longer period, to how often these additional buyers will buy the brand,
to what other brands any of these people also buy, and to how often
they do so. And we note how thes