Editing Consumer behaviour (section)

== Definition and explanation ==
Consumer behaviour entails "all activities associated with the purchase, use and disposal of goods and services, including the consumer's emotional, mental and behavioural responses that precede or follow these activities."<ref>Kardes, F., Cronley, M. and Cline, T., ''Consumer Behavior,'' Mason, OH, South-Western Cengage, 2011 p.7</ref>  The term consumer can refer to individual consumers as well as organisational consumers, and more specifically, "an end user, and not necessarily a purchaser, in the distribution chain of a good or service."<ref>{{Cite web |title=What is a consumer? definition and meaning |url=http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/consumer.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728201024/http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/consumer.html |archive-date=2020-07-28 |access-date=2023-11-09 |website=BusinessDictionary}}</ref> Consumer behaviour is concerned with:<ref>Kardes, F., Cronley, M. and Cline, T., ''Consumer Behavior,'' Mason, OH, South-Western Cengage, 2011 p.9; Sassatelli, R., ''Consumer Culture: History, Theory and Politics,'' Sage, 2007, p. 10</ref>
* ''purchase activities'': the purchase of goods or services; how consumers acquire products and services, and all the activities leading up to a purchase decision, including information search, evaluating goods and services, and payment methods including the purchase experience
* ''use or consumption activities'': concerns the who, where, when, and how of consumption and the usage experience, including the symbolic associations and the way that goods are distributed within families or consumption units
* ''disposal activities'': concerns the way that consumers dispose of products and packaging; may also include reselling activities such as [[eBay]] and second-hand markets

Consumer responses may be:<ref>Kardes, F., Cronley, M. and Cline, T., ''Consumer Behavior,'' Mason, OH, South-Western Cengage, 2011 pp 10-11</ref>
* ''emotional (or affective)'' responses: refer to emotions such as feelings or moods,
* ''mental (or cognitive'') responses: refer to the consumer's thought processes, their
* ''behavioural (or conative) responses:'' refer to the consumer's observable responses in relation to the purchase and disposal of goods or services.

According to the [[American Marketing Association]], consumer behaviour can be defined as "the dynamic interaction of affect and cognition, behaviour, and environmental events by which human beings conduct the exchange aspects of their lives."

As a field of study, consumer behaviour is an applied [[social science]]. Consumer behaviour analysis is the "use of behaviour principles, usually gained experimentally, to interpret human economic consumption." As a discipline, consumer behaviour stands at the intersection of economic psychology and marketing science.<ref>Foxal, G., "Foundations of Consumer Behaviour Analysis", ''Marketing Theory,'' Vol. 1, No. 2, pp 165–199</ref>