THEORY OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOR – CARDINALIST AND THE ORDINALIST

Consumer buyer behaviour is considered to be an inseparable part of marketing and Kotler and Keller  state that consumer buying behaviour is the study of the ways of buying and disposing of goods, services, ideas or experiences by the individuals, groups and organisations in order to satisfy their needs and wants.

Consumer behavior is the study of the processes involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use or dispose of products, services, ideas or experiences to satisfy needs and desires. It can also be said to be behavior that consumers display in searching for, purchasing, using, evaluating, and disposing of products and services that they expect will satisfy their needs.

Cardinal Approach:
The Cardinalist school asserts that utility can be measured and quantified. It means, it is possible to express utility that an individual derives from consuming a commodity in quantitative terms.

Ordinal Approach:
The ordinalist school asserts that utility cannot be measured in quantitative terms. Rather, the consumer can compare the utility accruing from different commodities (as a combination of them) and rank them in accordance with the satisfaction each commodity (or combination of commodities) gives him.

Thus, the cardinal approach to the measurement of utility believes that utility derived from the consumption of a commodity can be expressed in quantitative terms. The ordinalist approach rejects this and states that the consumer at best can rank the various commodities (or combination of them) in accordance with the satisfaction that he expects from their consumption.