Consumer behaviour is the study of how individual customers, groups or organizations select, buy, use, and dispose ideas, goods, and services to satisfy their needs and wants. It refers to the actions of the consumers in the market place and the underlying motives for those actions.
Consumer behaviour can be broadly classified as the decisions and actions that influence the purchasing behaviour of a consumer. What drives consumers to choose a particular product with respect to others is a question which is often analyzed and studied by marketers. Most of the selection process involved in purchasing is based on emotions and reasoning.
The study of consumer behaviour not only helps to understand the past but even predict the future. The below underlined factors pertaining to the tendencies, attitude and priorities of people must be given due importance to have a fairly good understanding of the purchasing patterns of consumers.
The various factors that influence the consumer behaviour are as follows:

• Marketing factors such as product design, price, promotion, packaging, positioning and distribution.
• Personal factors such as age, gender, education and income level.
• Psychological factors such as buying motives, perception of the product and attitudes towards the product.d. Situational factors such as physical surroundings at the time of purchase, social surroundings and time factor.
• Social factors such as social status, reference groups and family.
• Cultural factors, such as religion, social class—caste and sub-castes.

The knowledge of consumer behaviour enables them to take appropriate marketing decisions in respect of the following factors:

• Product design/model
• Pricing of the product
• Promotion of the product
• Packaging
• Positioning
• Place of distribution