What is S-O-R Model ?

Dulani Herath
4 min readAug 15, 2020

Each and every person has their own needs. We can categorize those needs into several categories. In order to the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,

  1. Psychological needs
  2. Safety needs
  3. Belongingness needs
  4. Esteem needs
  5. Self-authentication

are main categories of human needs.

People consume goods/services for satisfy their needs. In consumer stage, initially we should identify the actual need that we (consumer) have. In other words we should correctly identify and understand the pain that we have. Without identify the pain we are not able to gain a solution/medicine for that pain.

When we identify our needs/pain, we should consider about S-O-R model. Because each and everything happens under buying behavior of the consumer depends on the S-O-R model.

S-O-R model known as Stimulus, Organism and Response. There is a big relationship between stimulus, organism and response. Before happening a purchase all of these three steps must be completed and the most suitable organism for the stimuli is the buying behavior of the consumer which is known as the response. Stimulus-Organism-Response model was develop by Mehrabian and Russell.This model is about how people react to stimuli in the environment by using stimulus, organism and response (S-O-R). According to this model before sale or purchasing the environment create an emotional state and it can characterized as

· Pleasure

· Arousal

· Dominance

Pleasure is known as good feeling, happy or satisfaction. Arousal means a person feel excite, stimulate or alert. A feeling of control, free to act according to the situation is known as dominance. Mainly this model describe about the relationship between the stimuli in environment, emotions of people and the results of the interaction of stimuli and emotions.

It is very important that when we provide solutions for consumer stimuli the solution should be the best solution. Consumer is waiting for a solution and if there is a lead between consumer expectations and the solutions that they provide, the supplier may lose their valuable consumers.

Eg: If suppliers are able to provide soft drinks rather than provide water, and the consumer expect that the suppliers will provide soft drinks, obviously the suppliers have provide soft drinks over water. It may cause to reach the trust level of the consumer also.

Before doing a sale there should be an environment to the product.

Eg: There are some cool spots and they might have consumers only there is an environment of drink cool drinks. If there is very hot surrounding or if it is very sunny day, the cool spot might have number of consumers.

In the other hand there should have to be a reason for the pains of the consumers. If there are not any reason for the pain of them, they might have no pains with them.

Each and every retailer like to increase the number of consumers who daily come in to their shop. To achieve that specific task retailers have to identify that what are the factors in environment which make pleasure in the target consumers. Consuming is the thing which have to deal with five senses of human being and this impact of engaging these five senses known as ‘shopping arousal’. This is very powerful trigger in purchasing decision process.

a. Changing the environment

When we want to change the buying environment of the consumer mainly there are two things that we can do.

1. Change the structure of the environment.

2. Change inner mentality of the consumer.

Change the structure of the environment-

There is a way to change the buying environment by changing the structure of the environment. If we change the structure of the environment the type of consumers also can be change. Because they are waiting for the environment that mainly focus on their pain and give the most appropriate solution to them.

Change the inner mentality of the consumer-

There is a way to change the buying environment by changing the mentality of the consumer. As we know psychological factors can affect to the consumer buying behavior and if we change the mentality of the consumer it can be cause to change the buying behavior of the consumer also.

Eg: If there is an opinion that noodles are not good for health of people. Because of that situation people are not willing to buy noodles. It is happen because there is a theory create ‘do not buy noodles. If you buy noodles it is not good for your health.’ If we are able to change the mindset of the consumer as,

· Eating noodles from long time is not good for your health.

· Provide a substitute product for the people who are eating noodles.

Eg: ‘Raigam Deweni Batha

· Prove that your company change the ingredients which use to prepare previous noodles and new ingredients are good for their health.

· Get feedback from consumers.

All of the stages are combine with these S-O-R model.

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