The consumer market buys goods and services for personal consumption. Consumers vary tremendously in age, income, education, tastes, and other factors. Consumer behaviour is influenced by the buyer’s characteristics and by the buyer’s decision process. Buyer’s characteristics include four major factors: cultural, social, personal and psychological.
Culture is the most basic determinant of a person’s wants and behaviour. It includes the basic values, perceptions, preferences and behaviour that a person learns from family.
Social factors also influence a buyer’s behaviour. A person’s reference groups such as family, friends, social organisations, professional associations strongly affect product and brand choices.
The buyer’s age, life-cycle stage, occupation, economic circumstances, lifestyle, personality, and other personal characteristics influence the buying decisions. Young consumers have different needs and wants from older consumers; consumers with higher incomes buy differently from those who have less to spend.
Consumer buying behaviour is also influenced by psychological factors- motivation, perception, learning, and attitudes.
A person’s buying behaviour is the result of the complex interplay of all these cultural, social, personal and psychological factors. Although many of these factors cannot be controlled by marketers, they are useful in identifying and understanding the consumers that marketers are trying to influence.
No comments:
Post a Comment