Consumer Exploratory Behavior (CEB) and its significant implications on marketing have received considerable attention in consumer psychology and buyer behavioral research. In this paper, the authors establish a comprehensive theoretical framework of CEB and its implications on marketing. It is enunciated that CEB is an important construct, which can be used by marketing practitioners and academicians to understand the psychological motivations underlying consumer buying behavior. This will enable the designing of targeted marketing plans that envisage greater effectiveness.
The
notion that human behavior is sometimes influenced by the mere desire to attain
a satisfactory level of stimulation, has figured prominently among theories investigating
motivational tendencies as causes of people's actions. Research on this presumed
need for stimulation has shown that people tend to prefer intermediate level of
stimulationknown as Optimum Stimulation Level (OSL) in the literatureand there
are reliable individual differences in the amount of stimulation considered to
be optimal by a given person. To attain a satisfactory level of stimulation, a
person may engage in the exploration of the environment or exploratory behavior.
A
comprehensive review of the research on CEB has indicated it to be an important
psychological construct, which explains the underlying psychological motivations
of the behaviors that consumers portray during the buying process. This understanding
of the exploratory behavior shown by consumers during the buying process, and
underlying motivation is significant for marketers in several ways (Raju, 1980).
It will enable marketers to predict the buyers' response patterns to various marketing
stimuli, particularly in the context of product attributes, promotions, advertising
and retailing. Marketers will, thereby, be able to adopt appropriate strategies
pertaining to these contexts. In this paper, we have presented a review of these
studies and established the importance of CEB in marketing.
While
most of the studies on consumer buying behavior have considered demographics,
behavioral and socio-economic aspects as the main variables (primarily due to
the easy availability of consumer panel data that afford extensive information
on demographics and purchase behavior), scant research has been done to understand
and predict consumer buying behavior using psychological variables (i.e., at psychological
level). While results using the above-mentioned variables have been mostly inconsistent,
use of psychological variables have been recommended. Derived from the psychological
concept of OSL, CEB proves to be an important psychological construct to understand
the motivations underlying the purchase behaviors, thereby predicting consumer's
response to various marketing stimuli. |
