Consumers make many buying decisions every day. Most large companies research consumer buying decisions in depth to answer questions about what, where, when, why, how, and how much consumers buy.

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1. Introduction

Consumers make many buying decisions every day. Most large companies research consumer buying decisions in depth to answer questions about what, where, when, why, how, and how much consumers buy. Marketers can study actual consumer purchases to find out what they buy, where and how much. But learning about the whys of consumer buying behaviour is not so easy; the answers are often locked deep within the consumer’s head.

The central question for marketers is: How do consumers respond to various marketing efforts the company might use? The starting point is the stimulus-response model of buyer behaviour (Figure 1). It shows that marketing and other stimuli enter the consumer’s “black box” and produce certain responses. Marketing stimuli consist of four Ps: product, price, place and promotion. Other stimuli include major forces and events in the buyer’s environment: economic, technological, political and cultural. All these inputs enter the buyer’s black box, where they are turned into a set of observable buyer responses: product choice, brand choice, dealer choice, purchase timing, and purchase amount.

The marketer wants to understand how the stimuli are changed into responses inside the consumer’s black box, which has two parts. First, the buyer’s characteristics influence how he or she perceives and reacts to the stimuli. Second, the buyer’s decision process itself affects the buyer’s behaviour. We look at buyer characteristics as they affect buying behaviour and then at the buyer decision process. (Kotler & Armstrong (2000), Marketing – An Introduction, 5th Edition, Prentice-Hall Inc, USA)

Figure 1

2. Characteristics Affecting Consumers Behaviour

The key factors affecting consumer behaviour are culture, social, personal and psychological. The sub-factors are defined under each of the following factors:

2.1. Cultural Factors

These may influence marketing strategy planning in terms of implementing your product on an international scale and having to localise the product and its benefits to meet with cultural or social standards. It exerts the broadest and deepest influence on consumer behaviour. The marketer needs to understand the role played by the following buyer’s;

 

  • Culture – It is the set of basic values, perceptions, wants and behaviours learned by a member of society from family and other important institutions. Every group or society has a culture, and cultural influences on buying behaviour may vary greatly from country to country. Failure to adjust to these differences can result in ineffective marketing or embarrassing mistakes. Marketers are always trying to spot cultural shifts in order to discover new products that might be wanted. The shift toward informality has resulted in more demand for casual clothing and simpler home furnishings. And the increased desire for leisure time has resulted in more demand for convenience products and services.

  • Subculture – Each culture contains smaller subcultures, or groups of people with shared value systems based on common life experiences and situations. Subcultures include nationalities, religions, racial groups and geographic regions. Many subcultures make up important market segments, and marketers often design products and marketing programs tailored to their needs.

  • Social classes – They are society’s relatively permanent and ordered divisions whose members share similar values, interests and behaviours. Social class is not determined by income but is measure as a combination of occupation, income, education, wealth and other variables. In some social systems, members of different classes are reared for certain roles and cannot change their social position. Marketers are interested in social class because people within a given social class tend to exhibit similar buying behaviour. Social classes show distinct product and brand preferences in areas such as clothing, home furnishings, leisure activity and automobiles.

2.2. Social Factors

These may influence marketing strategy planning in terms of identifying which groups in society influence the target market the most thus allowing for promotional activities to be directed towards the ‘influencers’. A consumer’s behaviour is influenced by the following;

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  • Groups – When groups have a direct influence and to which a person belongs are membership groups. In contrast, reference groups serve as direct or indirect points of comparison or reference in forming a person’s attitudes or behaviour. People often are influenced by reference groups to which they do not belong. Marketers try to identify the reference groups of their target markets. Reference groups expose a person to new behaviours and lifestyles, influence the person’s attitudes and self-concept and create pressures to conform that may affect the person’s product and brand choices. The importance of group influence varies ...

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