Background Consumer ethical behavior has attracted much attention in recent years. However, most empirical research has focused on specific instances of ethical Consumer behavior and ignored other ethical behaviors. This means a complete lack of understanding of the lifestyles of ethical Consumers. In this article, while referring to the formation of ethical consumption, a full range of ethical concerns and behaviors of Consumers has been studied and identified. Conclusion This article thoroughly examines the concerns and behavioral experiences of ethical Consumers and shows that the ethical concerns of Consumers in the three areas of environmental welfare, human-social welfare and animal welfare. They seek to adopt an ethical lifestyle through incentive purchases, corporate sanctions, voluntary simplification, slow food consumption, and ethical discourse behaviors. However, in Iran, such actions and behaviors by Consumers are at the beginning of the road and we are far from the desired situation. These findings call on marketers and government policymakers to delve deeper into Consumerschr('39') ethical concerns and behaviors. On the other hand, by adopting appropriate marketing strategies, commercial companies can better respond to the social and environmental concerns of Consumers and meet their needs and ethical desires, and achieve a competitive advantage.

  Application of qualitative research methods in Consumer behavior is carried out through the methods such as experimental surveys, protocol interviewing, projective techniques, role-playing interview, in-depth interview, and focus groups. However, these methods only cover part of the qualitative research process. In fact, they are mostly data gathering approaches. Rigorous Understanding of qualitative and quantitative methodologies should be considered regarding their philosophical fundamentals and logical relation should exist between questions and research methodology. In case of reducing paradigm disturbance, if researcher seek experiences, meanings and insights of Consumer behavior, qualitative methods should be applied (included various related schemes) such as phenomenology and grounded theory. In this research, previous research and related literature in phenomenology have been reviewed, in the next step, existential-phenomenology as an alternative paradigm and purely qualitative approach for conceptualized Consumer experiences have been presented. This research would result in a rigorous understanding of Consumer experiences by providing a philosophical framework and qualitative methodology in marketing for marketing academic and practical managers.