Buyer Versus User- Consumer Behavior

In my pervious post i talk abou Importance of Consumer Behavior , Consumer Behavior---Introduction ,CRM as a part of leadorganizer and lead management with reference to crm. In last post i talk about Types of Consumers. Today, I am going to talk about Buyer Vs User.

Often the person who purchases the product is not the person who actually consumes or uses the product. A Father buys toys and cloths for his young children. The father is the buyer but the actual consumers are the children. A car is purchased by the husband or the wife but it is used by all the members of the family. Thus, in the family context, you may either have the situation where the buyer is distinct from the consumer or the buyer is only one of the many consumers.
The question that arises is: Who should be the subject of study in consumer behavior? Should we study the buyer or the consumer? To overcome this problem, in many instances it is the household or the family and not the individual who is considered the subject of the study.

However, a person involved in marketing, should have a very sharply defined focus for marketing strategy, especially promotional strategy. You must identify the best prospect for your products-whether it is the buyer or the user. But even when the consumer is distinct from the buyer, the consumer's likes and dislikes, taste, etc influence the buyer's decision to purchase a specific product or brand. Thus many companies play it safe and focus their promotion at both the user and the buyer.


ref: customer relationship management software