When a consumer go through his life using a product or service accumulates his experience with that brand. These experiences have an important impact on what a consumer have learned or remembered which will determine his future action. He will may make a repeat purchase or avoid and substitute depends upon what he has learned with his experience.

Consumer learning can be defined as a process through which they acquire information and experience about a consumption, which they apply to future buying behavior. It is also explained as a change in a content of long term memory and behavior. From these definitions one can deduce that it is a process that results in a concrete behavior change.

Learning Theories

Regarding the process of learning two distinctive schools of thought exist; behavioral learning theories and cognitive learning theories.

Behavioral Approach

Behavioral learning theories aren’t much of process oriented but rather it focuses on the inputs and outputs i.e. stimuli that one has been exposed to and the resultant behavior.

There are two main theories under the umbrella of behavioral approach to discuss the learning; Classical and Instrumental. Classical theory suggest that when two stimuli are closely linked together that produce a specific learned result, then even in the absence of one of the stimuli the remaining one produces the same resultant behavior. Likewise the classical approach, instrumental theory endorses the link between stimulus and the response (i.e. inputs and outputs). But this theory further elaborates the fact that the stimulus that produces the most satisfactory result for the respondent is learned. Another theory that is related with the behavioral approach is observational theory, which revolves around the idea that an action learned by observing others behavior i.e. how others have reacted to a particular stimuli and achieved a result.