Do you want to know about the major types of buying situation and what are the factors that influence the business buyer behavior? You are on the right spot to know the answers of these questions.
Business Buyer Behavior Definition
Business Buyer Behavior refers to the intent and behavior shown by the company and the company employees at the time of purchasing products and services for business organization.
The marketers must understand that how business purchasers will react to different marketing stimuli, at the basic level. The marketing stimuli for business buying contain 4P’s, as with consumer buying.
See Also: 5 Stages of Buyer Decision Making Process
These 4PS of marketing are product, price, place and promotion. Major forces in the environment are included as other stimuli like political, economic, technological, competitive and cultural.
These stimuli move in the business organization and converted into purchase responses like supplier choice, service or product choice, delivery service, order quantities and payment terms.
The marketer should know what occurs within the business organization to convert stimuli into buy responses in order to design better marketing mix strategies.
The purchasing activity contains two main parts within the business organization. First one is the purchasing center which consists of all the people involved in the purchasing decision.
Read More: Stages of Business Buying Decision Process
Second part contains purchasing decision process. Purchasing center and the purchasing decision process are affected by interpersonal, internal organizational and individual components as well as by external environmental components.
Major Types of Buying Situations
There are three major types of buying situations. Straight rebuy is the first situation which is extreme one and is generally routine decision.
On the other extreme level, new task is present which may normally need potential research. Modified rebuy lies in between both extreme situations and which needs some research.
Straight Rebuy
The purchaser reorders something in this situation without any alteration. The purchase department usually managed it on routine basis.
The purchaser just selects from a list of different suppliers on the basis of his past purchasing satisfaction. The quality of product or service should be properly maintained by the “in” suppliers.
Modified Rebuy
The prices, specifications of product, terms or suppliers are modified by the purchaser in this situation. Generally there are many decision participants in modified rebuy as compared to straight rebuy.
The “in” suppliers get pressure or nervousness in this situation regarding to provide the beat quality of product or services to keep the customers satisfied.
Modified rebuy situation serves as an opportunity to the “out” suppliers to create an effective offer and acquire new business.
New Task
In case of new task situation, a product or service is purchased by the business organization for the first time. In such situation, increased risk or cost may result into larger portion of decision participants and higher their struggle to gather the information.
New task situation serves as challenge and opportunity to the marketer. The marketer applies a number of basic purchasing effects along with the provision of assistance & information.
More decisions are made in new task situation by the purchaser than straight rebuy situation. The purchaser make decisions about price limits, suppliers, product specifications, order quantities, payment terms, delivery times and service terms in the new task situations.
Read More: Steps in Marketing Research Process
These decisions order changes with every situation and different decision participants effecting every selection.
Factors that Influence the Business Buyers
Here the question is what are the various organizational factors influencing the business buyers.
? While making their buying decisions, business buying organizations deals with many effects. Following are some of the factors that affect the business buyer.
Environmental Factors
Business purchasers are potentially affected by components in the expected and current economic environment like economic outlook, level of primary demand and cost of money.
With the increase in economic uncertainty, reduction is made on new investments by the business buyers along with the effort to minimize their inventories.
Read More: Macro Environment Factors
A shortage in key materials is the environmental factor that is increasingly significant. The purchasing and holding of larger inventories of scarce materials is done by many business organizations in order to guarantee proper supply.
The political, technological and competitive growth in the environment also influences business buyers.
The business buyer responses to the behavior of market and strategies can be strongly affected by the customs and culture especially in the international marketing environment.
The business marketer should monitor such components, find how these components will influence the purchaser and try to convert these challenges into opportunities.
Organizational Factors
Every purchasing organization has its own structure, objectives, procedures, policies and systems. So the business marketer should understand these organizational components deeply and completely.
Questions emerge like how many individuals are participating in a purchasing decision? What are their measurement criteria? Who are they? What are the limits and policies of the business organization on its purchasers?
Interpersonal Factors
There are many participants who generally affect each other and are included in the buying center. Mostly it is difficult to find out by the marketer that what types of interpersonal components and group dynamics move into the buying process.
The buying decision may be affected by the participants they control punishment and reward, have special expertise, as well liked or have particular connection with other significant participants.
Read More: Types of Consumer Buying Behavior
Interpersonal components are mostly much subtle. So these components should know by marketers whenever possible and they design strategies that lead marketers into account.
Individual Factors
Personal motives, preferences and perceptions are brought by every participant in the business buying decision process.
Personal features like income, age, education, personality, personal identification and attitudes toward risk affect the individual components.
Also purchasers have various purchasing styles. The deep analysis of competitive proposals are made by some of them, who may be technical kinds, before selecting a vendor.
Other purchasers are intuitive negotiators who are expert in compelling their suppliers to compete one another and provide the effective bargain.
