Abstract:

Consumer purchasing decision making has been of great interest to researchers and practitioners for improving strategic marketing policies and gaining a competitive advantage in the market. Traditional market models do not comprehend the inner psychological process of consumer purchase decision and generally concentrate on single individuals rather than taking social interactions into account in addition individuals are tied to one another with invisible bonds and the influence an individual receives from another is known to be word-of-mouth (WOM) effect. Some people have larger influence on other individuals and they are assumed to be opinion leaders. A new evolving modeling approach, agent-based modeling is capable of comprehending individual preferences and motivations and it is suitable for imitating social interactions among the consumer network.