) disadvantages: - comparability and availability (3 way- stick) in the regions where census data is problematic, it's availability can

be a prob lem, and, obviously, this introduces unreliability into your estimations based o n statistical methods; in the regions like US secondary data is so widely available that one has to pos ess superior ability to analyze it to be able to extract advantageous informatio n about consumer behaviour not already extracted by competitors) - explanatory power if consumers are grouped by one demographics, say, age, there's ambiguity as to whether consumers at the border ages are sufficiently different to place them in separate groups; also, you can not split them into groups to no limit - therefo re you lose information about consumers if you group them based on limited demog raphics; The Disadvantages of Consumer Behavior Perspectives Consumer behavior perspectives drive market research efforts. In the quest to learn more about what drives consumers and therefore how to infl uence their choices, researchers have developed several approaches to their work . According to Professor Lars Perner of the University of Southern California, a consumer psychologist, consumer behavior perspectives help develop marketing st rategies, public policy, social marketing and understanding how to become a bett er consumer. However, not everyone agrees with this common use of behavior persp ectives. There are potential academic and cultural ramifications that concern cr itics. 1. Individualistic Perspective o The primary approach to consumer behavior studies involves looking at ch oices of individuals or specific groups of individuals. According to a 1985 pape r by Julia Bristol of the University of Michigan, though this advances knowledge extensively from one perspective, it's essentially the only perspective consume r behaviorists research. External social and circumstantial factors are complete ly neglected in favor of psychological and sociological theories of personal and group choices. Cultural Bias o Current consumer behavior research perspectives are formed within contex t of a Judeo-Christian cultural framework. American and Western countries have d eveloped and driven the majority of consumer behavior research and the associate d perspectives, and therefore carry these in their approaches. While the biases are perhaps unintended, they are also impossible to separate out of the work its elf. This most common shows in the premise of consumer behavior as a function of individual choice. Learning Perspectives o One consumer behavior perspective involves the idea that people operate in certain, predictable ways of learning and deciding. Using these principles, t heorists feel that they can predict consumer choices as they change their extern al and situation variables, such as environment, options or even time of day. Th ese perspectives rely on behavioral theories of learning, the family life cycle, role theories, and reference group theory. However, this approach then reduces consumer behavior to hunting for the right variables because it assumes human de cisions are made on a very fixed set of principles. Studies do not always confir m the validity of this perspective. Non-Sequential Approaches o Some consumer behavior researchers approach their work from the perspect ive that consumer behavior is random and stems from non-sequential thought proce sses that aren't so easily predicted. In fact, some theorists believe that behav iors can stem from consumer decisions rather than the more mainstream assumption that decisions stem from consumer behavior. However, this theory presents diffi culties because it is very difficult to construct scientific research that adequ

ately backs it. As a result, it often isn't pursued by academics and those seeki ng to derive marketing strategies.