A Review of Past Trends, Recent Developments and Future Directions in Consumer Research

According to Kotler, a product/service is any thing that seeks to satisfy a need or a want. Going by the traditional definition, if we were to go into a store or shop only when we needed to buy something, and if once there, we bought only what we needed, the economy would collapse! Since this is not the case with developed as well as the developing countries, today the science of buying/shopping is a force to reckon with.

"The whole world is a stage and each one of us an actor" - so said Shakespeare. Studying each individual through his/ her consumption pattern and playing with various permutations and combinations can give an approximation into the consumer behavior at large. So where do we start? The present can be viewed as an entity only when compared with the past and extrapolated to the future. Otherwise any study in our context remains incomplete without its normative validation. Therefore this study begins with the history of consumer research. To study any topic in detail, the topic needs to be defined and its boundaries outlined; in order to refrain ourselves from deviating from the topic.