Is costumer behavior a quantitative science or qualitativ
Introduction
All of us are consumers. We consume good everyday, we consume and buy products and services according to our needs, preferences and buying power. What we buy, how we buy, where and when we buy, in how much quantity we buy depends on our social and cultural background and our age and family but also on our perception, attitudes, beliefs and values, motivation, personality, and many other factors that are both internal and external to us.
All this process is what we call in economics term consumer behaviour. It is important to say that we also consider before buying whether to buy or not to buy and, from which source or sellers. The marketers try to understand the needs of different consumers and having understood different behaviours require they study in their internal and external environment, they formulate their plans for marketing.
I will try to develop an interdisciplinary approach of consumer behaviour starting from defining the concept moving to microeconomics methodological study and passing through the behavioural economics highly mphasizing on factors that influence the decision-making process of consumers behaviour I think two summarize more the concepts: “Customer behaviour reflects the totally of consumer decision with respect to the acquisition, consumption and disposing of goods, services, activities experiences, people and ideas by (human) decision-making”l . Customer behaviour means more than Just the way that a person buys tangible product such as cars.
It also included peoples use of services, experiences and activities such as going to the doctor. Microeconomics and Behaviour economics I start with a brief overview of to microeconomics theory, which represents a starting point for examining costumer behaviour. The microeconomics theory makes the assumption that “Consumer behave rationally and given the chance they will choose the best alternative of with their level of income and preference2” Neoclassical economic coincided with the dominance of the positivist methodological position that judges a theory by its ability to make predictions that are supported by the evidence.
In Microeconomics “the individual firm rationally maximizes profit through purchase decision”3. n sum the microeconomics theory balances tour elements tn consumer’s available income, the price of the goods, the consumer’s tastes or preferences, and the assumption of utility maximization. In such models, utility can best be thought of as levels of satisfaction, happiness or personal benefit. By using the assumption that individuals act in order to maximize personal subjective benefits, economists make costumer behaviour analyse quite simple as they “apply powerful mathematical techniques for modelling behaviour outcomes4”.
The Microeconomics model of costumer behaviour often correspond to how costumer ehave however clear and voluminous evidence from psychology has shown that the rationality assumption of standards economics are wrong. Evidence from psychology has shown that we often are irrational. “This selfish maximization principle of Homo economicus limits the application of neoclassical economics to other areas”5 Recognition of these difficulties had led to a series of new approaches to modelling the individual behaviour, mostly based on challenges to the assumption of neoclassical economics.
At the end of the 20th century the strict neoclassical position came under attack from many different directions. Some of these merely suggested more complex objectives and constraints, while others took economics is new directions by putting an emphasis on uncertainty and risk”6. Simon argued that human behaviour is best modelled as aspiration-based, rather than as optimizing behaviour. In his view is important to achieve aspiration levels with satisfactory outcomes indicating that “satisfy’ behaviour is normal and optimizing behaviour is abnormal.
