A Study Of Consumer Behaviour In The Consumption Of Soft Drinks In The Kaval Towns Of Uttar Pradesh Indaia

Abstract

Consumption of products and the minutiae of consumer behaviour corresponding to it are probably as old as the existence of the human species on planet earth. In pre-historic times consumption was inextricably linked to survival. Early man found random and arbitrary ways to consume things with the sole objective of keeping body and soul together. Although consumption was in vogue but there was no such thing as consumer behaviour as we know it today. The primary reason for this was that consumption of things (which were not yet products in the modern, contemporary sense of the term) was very rudimentary. There were no patterns as such in the behaviour exhibited by the stone-age human beings (who were not yet consumers in the modern, contemporary sense of the term). newlineOver a very long period of evolutionary metamorphosis that mankind has undergone, the physical and chemical constituents of consumption have become defined over the ages and have been redefined umpteen times. Similarly and correspondingly, consumer behaviour has acquired some kind of structure over the ages and has been subsequently restructured a number of times. These transformations in the nature and complexion of consumption and consumer newlinebehaviour have seen the light of the day in tandem with the changing characteristics of products. The very purpose of products in the life of people has undergone a paradigm shift. The concept of product has traversed the mental distance from a need-satisfying entity to a want-satisfying entity. Products have evolved from being utilitarian implements to being lifestyle symbols. They have become physical expressions of the evolving value systems of people. newlineConsumer behaviour, in turn, has graduated from being a mere academic extension of the marketing discipline to a very active and ever-changing focal area of attention for both scholars and practitioners of marketing. Synoptically speaking, consumer behaviour is the study of the interrelationships of people and products; it is an investigation into their