Consumer behavior analysis is based on consumer's buying behavior. It aims at improving business performance through an understanding of customer's preferences and desires. In today's world of growing competition where there are numerous brands selling the same products, consumers have an abundant number of choices and many diverse factors influence their buying behavior. In such a scenario, this analysis can help in structuring and formulating different strategies for maximizing profit. This study made an attempt to find the factors affecting consumer's buying behavior, with the focus on two commonly used products (soaps and chocolates). These factors are based on certain variables used in the survey. These variables were aimed at identifying the secondary factors that influenced the choice of soaps/chocolates at the point of purchase or due to other contextual reasons. The variables include packaging, cost, availability, ingredients, product popularity, etc., that influence the choice of a brand from among those in the consideration list, but may not be the most important and primary determinants for shortlisting brands. The study is useful to the marketers as they can create various marketing programs that they believe will be of interest to the consumers. It can also boost their marketing strategy.

Consumer is a person who buys or uses things (goods) or services. Marketers are the persons who provide these services. The most challenging questions for marketers are why buyers do what they do (or don't do). Such knowledge is critical for marketers, since having a strong understanding of buyer's behavior will shed light on what is important for the consumer and also suggest the important influences on consumer decision-making. Factors affecting consumers' buying decisions are extremely complex. It is deeply rooted in psychology with dashes of sociology thrown in just to make things more interesting. It explains the influences on the consumer from groups such as family, friends and society in general. Consumers' buying behavior result from deeply held values and attitudes, their perception of the world, their place in it, from common sense, from impulse or just plain take. Consumers mainly face two types of purchase decisions: `New Purchase'—these purchases are very difficult to be made by consumer due to lack of confidence in decision-making; and `Repurchase'—consumer feels confident in making these decisions since they have previous experience in purchasing the product. Let's examine the process of how a consumer takes buying decision (Figure 1).

The importance of each step might vary depending on the circumstances surrounding the purchase. Consumers' decision-making process begins when buyer realizes his/her unsatisfied need, want or desire. Needs may be functional or psychological in nature, and retailers are often trying to satisfy psychological needs as much as functional ones (Babin et al., 1994). Consumers are motivated to satisfy their needs, they will next undertake a search for information on possible solutions. Consumers' search efforts may result in a set of options from which a choice can be made. There might be two levels to this stage. At level one, the consumer may create a set of possible solutions to their needs (i.e., product types) while at second level the consumer may be evaluating particular products (i.e., brands). The purchase decision may provide three possibilities to a consumer: from whom to buy, when to buy and also not to buy. In many cases the solution chosen by the consumer is the same as the product whose evaluation is the highest. A favorable post-purchase evaluation of the product leads to consumer satisfaction. If the product performs below the consumer's expectation, then he/she will reevaluate satisfaction with the decision, which at its extreme may result in the consumer returning the product. When the consumer is satisfied with the product's performance, repeat purchase is more likely (Szymanski and Hernard, 2001).

Consumer's decision-making process is influenced by many factors such as cultural, social, personal and psychological. `Cultural factors' exert the broadest and deepest influence on consumer behavior. It represents beliefs and, in many cases, we learn to act by interacting or observing other members of society. Consumer buying process offers two useful perspectives: the decision-making process associated with consumer buying and the factors which affect the buying process (Rowley, 1997). The author further stated that the consumers buying process can be divided into personal, psychological and social and cultural factors. The `social factors', such as consumer's small groups, family, reference group, social roles and status can affect consumer responses and influence their buying behavior. `Personal factors' such as age, lifecycle stage, occupation, education and economic situation, and `Psychological factors' such as, motivation, perception, learning, beliefs and attitudes and personality, also play major roles in consumer decision-making process. The `marketing programs' often have a considerable amount of influence on consumers' buying decision. It sometimes becomes irrelevant for consumers to think about the quality of the product when they are so influenced by its marketing: "Customer satisfaction is the major aim of the marketing concept" (Dibb et al., 1994).

Marketing Management Journal, Consumer Buying Behavior, Marketing Strategies, Decision Making Process, Marketing Programs, Consumer Satisfaction, Brand Switching, Promotional Schemes, Statistical Package for Social Science, SPSS, FMCG Product Consumption, Electronic Media.