how do consumer characteristics influence buying behavior essay

Understanding Consumer Behavior Essay

Introduction.

Understanding consumer behavior is one of the critical elements in the success of a business. Consumers play a significant role in any economic model in determining products that are in demand. According to BBC, since the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer behavior has significantly changed (Latham, 2021).

Many consumers are more conscious of the environmental impact of the products they are consuming. Additionally, due to the economic hardships that the pandemic has caused, consumers are becoming more ethical in making their purchases, with many of them preferring affordable products. According to the article, sustainability has become a significant influence on the choices the consumers (Latham, 2021). The evolved behavior is influencing the consumers to make choices aimed at reducing the length of the supply chains for better outcomes for the environment. For instance, since the pandemic, consumers make most of their purchases locally, especially from small businesses.

One of the primary reasons for this change is attributed to the lockdown period when people spend most of their time with their families and enjoy nature. As a result, they developed a more positive approach towards the environment, thus becoming ethically aware of the environmental impact of some of the products and the need to consume more sustainable products (Latham, 2021). According to The Theory of Individual Behavior topic, consumer behavior is categorized into two elements: consumer opportunities and consumer preferences (Baye & Prince, 2022). Consumer opportunities provide people with choices on goods and services, while consumer preferences are the choices people can afford.

The recent consumer behavior influenced by the pandemic focuses more on consumer preferences than consumer opportunities. Consumers are only purchasing essential goods and reducing expenditure on secondary goods (Baye & Prince, 2022). The uncertainty caused by the pandemic has made people be prepared for emergencies hence the need to be cautious about their expenditure.

Latham, K. (2021). Has coronavirus made us more ethical consumers? . BBC News. Web.

Baye, M., & Prince, J. (2022). Managerial Economics & Business Strategy (10th ed., pp. 104-108). McGraw Hill LLC.

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Bibliography

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3.1 Factors That Influence Consumers’ Buying Behavior

Learning objectives.

Describe the personal and psychological factors that may influence what consumers buy and when they buy it.
Explain what marketing professionals can do to influence consumers’ behavior.
Explain how looking at lifestyle information helps firms understand what consumers want to purchase.
Explain how Maslow’s hierarchy of needs works.
Explain how culture, subcultures, social classes, families, and reference groups affect consumers’ buying behavior.

You’ve been a consumer with purchasing power for much longer than you probably realize—since the first time you were asked which cereal or toy you wanted. Over the years, you’ve developed rules of thumb or mental shortcuts providing a systematic way to choose among alternatives, even if you aren’t aware of it. Other consumers follow a similar process, but different people, no matter how similar they are, make different purchasing decisions. You might be very interested in purchasing a Smart Car, but your best friend might want to buy a Ford F-150 truck. What factors influenced your decision and what factors influenced your friend’s decision?

As we mentioned earlier in the chapter, consumer behavior is influenced by many things, including environmental and marketing factors, the situation, personal and psychological factors, family, and culture. Businesses try to figure out trends so they can reach the people most likely to buy their products in the most cost-effective way possible. Businesses often try to influence a consumer’s behavior with things they can control such as the layout of a store, music, grouping and availability of products, pricing, and advertising. While some influences may be temporary and others are long lasting, different factors can affect how buyers behave—whether they influence you to make a purchase, buy additional products, or buy nothing at all. Let’s now look at some of the influences on consumer behavior in more detail.

Situational Factors

Have you ever been in a department story and couldn’t find your way out? No, you aren’t necessarily directionally challenged. Marketing professionals take physical factors such as a store’s design and layout into account when they are designing their facilities. Presumably, the longer you wander around a facility, the more you will spend. Grocery stores frequently place bread and milk products on the opposite ends of the stores because people often need both types of products. To buy both, they have to walk around an entire store, which of course, is loaded with other items they might see and purchase.

Store locations also influence behavior. Starbucks has done a good job in terms of locating its stores. It has the process down to a science; you can scarcely drive a few miles down the road without passing a Starbucks. You can also buy cups of Starbucks coffee at many grocery stores and in airports—virtually any place where there is foot traffic.

Physical factors that firms can control, such as the layout of a store, music played at stores, the lighting, temperature, and even the smells you experience are called atmospherics . Perhaps you’ve visited the office of an apartment complex and noticed how great it looked and even smelled. It’s no coincidence. The managers of the complex were trying to get you to stay for a while and have a look at their facilities. Research shows that “strategic fragrancing” results in customers staying in stores longer, buying more, and leaving with better impressions of the quality of stores’ services and products. Mirrors near hotel elevators are another example. Hotel operators have found that when people are busy looking at themselves in the mirrors, they don’t feel like they are waiting as long for their elevators (Moore, 2008).

Not all physical factors are under a company’s control, however. Take weather, for example. Rainy weather can be a boon to some companies, like umbrella makers such as Totes, but a problem for others. Beach resorts, outdoor concert venues, and golf courses suffer when it is raining heavily. Businesses such as automobile dealers also have fewer customers. Who wants to shop for a car in the rain?

Firms often attempt to deal with adverse physical factors such as bad weather by offering specials during unattractive times. For example, many resorts offer consumers discounts to travel to beach locations during hurricane season. Having an online presence is another way to cope with weather-related problems. What could be more comfortable than shopping at home? If it’s raining too hard to drive to the GAP, REI, or Abercrombie & Fitch, you can buy products from these companies and many others online. You can shop online for cars, too, and many restaurants take orders online and deliver.

Crowding is another situational factor. Have you ever left a store and not purchased anything because it was just too crowded? Some studies have shown that consumers feel better about retailers who attempt to prevent overcrowding in their stores. However, other studies have shown that to a certain extent, crowding can have a positive impact on a person’s buying experience. The phenomenon is often referred to as “herd behavior” (Gaumer & Leif, 2005).

If people are lined up to buy something, you want to know why. Should you get in line to buy it too? Herd behavior helped drive up the price of houses in the mid-2000s before the prices for them rapidly fell. Unfortunately, herd behavior has also led to the deaths of people. In 2008, a store employee was trampled to death by an early morning crowd rushing into a Walmart to snap up holiday bargains.

Social Situation

The social situation you’re in can significantly affect your purchase behavior. Perhaps you have seen Girl Scouts selling cookies outside grocery stores and other retail establishments and purchased nothing from them, but what if your neighbor’s daughter is selling the cookies? Are you going to turn her down or be a friendly neighbor and buy a box (or two)?

Thin Mints, Anyone?

(click to see video)

Are you going to turn down cookies from this cute Girl Scout? What if she’s your neighbor’s daughter? Pass the milk, please!

Companies like Pampered Chef that sell their products at parties understand that the social situation makes a difference. When you’re at a friend’s Pampered Chef party, you don’t want to look cheap or disappoint your friend by not buying anything. Certain social situations can also make you less willing to buy products. You might spend quite a bit of money each month eating at fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s and Subway. Where do you take someone for your first date? Some people might take a first date to Subway, but other people would perhaps choose a restaurant that’s more upscale. Likewise, if you have turned down a drink or dessert on a date because you were worried about what the person you were with might have thought, your consumption was affected by your social situation (Matilla & Wirtz, 2008).

The time of day, time of year, and how much time consumers feel like they have to shop affect what they buy. Researchers have even discovered whether someone is a “morning person” or “evening person” affects shopping patterns. Have you ever gone to the grocery store when you are hungry or after pay day when you have cash in your pocket? When you are hungry or have cash, you may purchase more than you would at other times. Seven-Eleven Japan is a company that’s extremely in tune to time and how it affects buyers. The company’s point-of-sale systems at its checkout counters monitor what is selling well and when, and stores are restocked with those items immediately—sometimes via motorcycle deliveries that zip in and out of traffic along Japan’s crowded streets. The goal is to get the products on the shelves when and where consumers want them. Seven-Eleven Japan also knows that, like Americans, its customers are “time starved.” Shoppers can pay their utility bills, local taxes, and insurance or pension premiums at Seven-Eleven Japan stores, and even make photocopies (Bird, 2002).

Companies worldwide are aware of people’s lack of time and are finding ways to accommodate them. Some doctors’ offices offer drive-through shots for patients who are in a hurry and for elderly patients who find it difficult to get out of their cars. Tickets.com allows companies to sell tickets by sending them to customers’ mobile phones when they call in. The phones’ displays are then read by barcode scanners when the ticket purchasers arrive at the events they’re attending. Likewise, if you need customer service from Amazon.com, there’s no need to wait on the telephone. If you have an account with Amazon, you just click a button on the company’s Web site and an Amazon representative calls you immediately.

Reason for the Purchase

The reason you are shopping also affects the amount of time you will spend shopping. Are you making an emergency purchase? What if you need something for an important dinner or a project and only have an hour to get everything? Are you shopping for a gift or for a special occasion? Are you buying something to complete a task/project and need it quickly? In recent years, emergency clinics have sprung up in strip malls all over the country. Convenience is one reason. The other is sheer necessity. If you cut yourself and you are bleeding badly, you’re probably not going to shop around much to find the best clinic. You will go to the one that’s closest to you. The same thing may happen if you need something immediately.

Purchasing a gift might not be an emergency situation, but you might not want to spend much time shopping for it either. Gift certificates have been popular for years. You can purchase gift cards for numerous merchants at your local grocery store or online. By contrast, suppose you need to buy an engagement ring. Sure, you could buy one online in a jiffy, but you probably wouldn’t do that. What if the diamond was fake? What if your significant other turned you down and you had to return the ring? How hard would it be to get back online and return the ring? (Hornik & Miniero, 2009)

Have you ever felt like going on a shopping spree? At other times wild horses couldn’t drag you to a mall. People’s moods temporarily affect their spending patterns. Some people enjoy shopping. It’s entertaining for them. At the extreme are compulsive spenders who get a temporary “high” from spending.

A sour mood can spoil a consumer’s desire to shop. The crash of the U.S. stock market in 2008 left many people feeling poorer, leading to a dramatic downturn in consumer spending. Penny pinching came into vogue, and conspicuous spending was out. Costco and Walmart experienced heightened sales of their low-cost Kirkland Signature and Great Value brands as consumers scrimped 1 . Saks Fifth Avenue wasn’t so lucky. Its annual release of spring fashions usually leads to a feeding frenzy among shoppers, but spring 2009 was different. “We’ve definitely seen a drop-off of this idea of shopping for entertainment,” says Kimberly Grabel, Saks Fifth Avenue’s senior vice president of marketing (Rosenbloom, 2009). To get buyers in the shopping mood, companies resorted to different measures. The upscale retailer Neiman Marcus began introducing more mid-priced brands. By studying customer’s loyalty cards, the French hypermarket Carrefour hoped to find ways to get its customers to purchase nonfood items that have higher profit margins.

The glum mood wasn’t bad for all businesses though. Discounters like Half-Priced books saw their sales surge. So did seed sellers as people began planting their own gardens. Finally, what about those products (Aqua Globes, Snuggies, and Ped Eggs) you see being hawked on television? Their sales were the best ever. Apparently, consumers too broke to go on vacation or shop at Saks were instead watching television and treating themselves to the products (Ward, 2009).

Personal Factors

Personality and self-concept.

Personality describes a person’s disposition, helps show why people are different, and encompasses a person’s unique traits. The “Big Five” personality traits that psychologists discuss frequently include openness or how open you are to new experiences, conscientiousness or how diligent you are, extraversion or how outgoing or shy you are, agreeableness or how easy you are to get along with, and neuroticism or how prone you are to negative mental states.

Do personality traits predict people’s purchasing behavior? Can companies successfully target certain products to people based on their personalities? How do you find out what personalities consumers have? Are extraverts wild spenders and introverts penny pinchers?

The link between people’s personalities and their buying behavior is somewhat unclear. Some research studies have shown that “sensation seekers,” or people who exhibit extremely high levels of openness, are more likely to respond well to advertising that’s violent and graphic. The problem for firms is figuring out “who’s who” in terms of their personalities.

Marketers have had better luck linking people’s self-concepts to their buying behavior. Your self-concept is how you see yourself—be it positive or negative. Your ideal self is how you would like to see yourself—whether it’s prettier, more popular, more eco-conscious, or more “goth,” and others’ self-concept, or how you think others see you, also influences your purchase behavior. Marketing researchers believe people buy products to enhance how they feel about themselves—to get themselves closer to their ideal selves.

The slogan “Be All That You Can Be,” which for years was used by the U.S. Army to recruit soldiers, is an attempt to appeal to the self-concept. Presumably, by joining the U.S. Army, you will become a better version of yourself, which will, in turn, improve your life. Many beauty products and cosmetic procedures are advertised in a way that’s supposed to appeal to the ideal self people seek. All of us want products that improve our lives.

Gender, Age, and Stage of Life

While demographic variables such as income, education, and marital status are important, we will look at gender, age, and stage of life and how they influence purchase decisions. Men and women need and buy different products (Ward & Thuhang, 2007). They also shop differently and in general, have different attitudes about shopping. You know the old stereotypes. Men see what they want and buy it, but women “try on everything and shop ‘til they drop.” There’s some truth to the stereotypes. That’s why you see so many advertisements directed at one sex or the other—beer commercials that air on ESPN and commercials for household products that air on Lifetime. Women influence fully two-thirds of all household product purchases, whereas men buy about three-quarters of all alcoholic beverages (Schmitt, 2008). The shopping differences between men and women seem to be changing, though. Younger, well-educated men are less likely to believe grocery shopping is a woman’s job and would be more inclined to bargain shop and use coupons if the coupons were properly targeted at them (Hill & Harmon, 2007). One survey found that approximately 45 percent of married men actually like shopping and consider it relaxing.

One study by Resource Interactive, a technology research firm, found that when shopping online, men prefer sites with lots of pictures of products and women prefer to see products online in lifestyle context—say, a lamp in a living room. Women are also twice as likely as men to use viewing tools such as the zoom and rotate buttons and links that allow them to change the color of products.

What Women Want versus What Men Want

Check out this Heineken commercial, which highlights the differences between “what women want” and “what men want” when it comes to products.

Marketing to men is big business. Some advertising agencies specialize in advertisements designed specifically to appeal to male consumers.

Kimberly – Grandpa Reading – CC BY-NC 2.0.

Many businesses today are taking greater pains to figure out “what men want.” Products such as face toners and body washes for men such as the Axe brand and hair salons such as the Men’s Zone and Weldon Barber are a relatively new phenomenon. Some advertising agencies specialize in advertising directed at men. There are also many products such as kayaks and mountain bikes targeted toward women that weren’t in the past.

You have probably noticed that the things you buy have changed as you age. Think about what you wanted and how you spent five dollars when you were a child, a teenager, and an adult. When you were a child, the last thing you probably wanted as a gift was clothing. As you became a teen, however, cool clothes probably became a bigger priority. Don’t look now, but depending on the stage of life you’re currently in, diapers and wrinkle cream might be just around the corner.

If you’re single and working after graduation, you probably spend your money differently than a newly married couple. How do you think spending patterns change when someone has a young child or a teenager or a child in college? Diapers and day care, orthodontia, tuition, electronics—regardless of the age, children affect the spending patterns of families. Once children graduate from college and parents are empty nesters, spending patterns change again.

Empty nesters and baby boomers are a huge market that companies are trying to tap. Ford and other car companies have created “aging suits” for young employees to wear when they’re designing automobiles 2 . The suit simulates the restricted mobility and vision people experience as they get older. Car designers can then figure out how to configure the automobiles to better meet the needs of these consumers.

Car Makers Design Special Aging Suit

The “aging suit” has elastic bindings that hamper a car designer’s movement and goggles that simulate deteriorating eyesight. The suit gives the designer an idea what kinds of car-related challenges older consumers face.

Lisa Rudes Sandel, the founder of Not Your Daughter’s Jeans (NYDJ), created a multimillion-dollar business by designing jeans for baby boomers with womanly bodies. Since its launch seven years ago, NYDJ has become the largest domestic manufacturer of women’s jeans under $100. “The truth is,” Rudes Sandel says, “I’ve never forgotten that woman I’ve been aiming for since day one.” Rudes Sandel “speaks to” every one of her customers via a note tucked into each pair of jean that reads, “NYDJ (Not Your Daughter’s Jeans) cannot be held responsible for any positive consequence that may arise due to your fabulous appearance when wearing the Tummy Tuck jeans. You can thank me later” (Saffian, 2009).

You’re only as old as you feel—and the things you buy.

Viola Ng – – CC BY-ND 2.0.

Your chronological age , or actual age in years, is one thing. Your cognitive age , or how old you perceive yourself to be, is another. A person’s cognitive age affects his or her activities and sparks interests consistent with his or her perceived age (Barak & Gould, 1985). Cognitive age is a significant predictor of consumer behaviors, including people’s dining out, watching television, going to bars and dance clubs, playing computer games, and shopping (Barak & Gould, 1985). Companies have found that many consumers feel younger than their chronological age and don’t take kindly to products that feature “old folks” because they can’t identify with them.

If you have ever watched the television show Wife Swap , you can see that despite people’s similarities (e.g., being middle-class Americans who are married with children), their lifestyles can differ radically. To better understand and connect with consumers, companies interview or ask people to complete questionnaires about their lifestyles or their activities, interests, and opinions (often referred to as AIO statements). Consumers are not only asked about products they like, where they live, and what their gender is but also about what they do—that is, how they spend their time and what their priorities, values, opinions, and general outlooks on the world are. Where do they go other than work? Who do they like to talk to? What do they talk about? Researchers hired by Procter & Gamble have gone so far as to follow women around for weeks as they shop, run errands, and socialize with one another (Berner, 2006). Other companies have paid people to keep a daily journal of their activities and routines.

A number of research organizations examine lifestyle and psychographic characteristics of consumers. Psychographics combines the lifestyle traits of consumers and their personality styles with an analysis of their attitudes, activities, and values to determine groups of consumers with similar characteristics. One of the most widely used systems to classify people based on psychographics is the VALS (Values, Attitudes, and Lifestyles) framework. Using VALS to combine psychographics with demographic information such as marital status, education level, and income provide a better understanding of consumers.

Psychological Factors

Motivation is the inward drive we have to get what we need. In the mid-1900s, Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, developed the hierarchy of needs shown in Figure 3.4 “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” .

Figure 3.4 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow theorized that people have to fulfill their basic needs—food, water, and sleep—before they can begin fulfilling higher-level needs. Have you ever gone shopping when you were tired or hungry? Even if you were shopping for something that would make you the envy of your friends (maybe a new car) you probably wanted to sleep or eat even more. (Forget the car. Just give me a nap and a candy bar.)

The need for food is recurring. Other needs, such as shelter, clothing, and safety, tend to be enduring. Still other needs arise at different points in time in a person’s life. For example, during grade school and high school, your social needs probably rose to the forefront. You wanted to have friends and get a date. Perhaps this prompted you to buy certain types of clothing or electronic devices. After high school, you began thinking about how people would view you in your “station” in life, so you decided to pay for college and get a professional degree, thereby fulfilling your need for esteem . If you’re lucky, at some point you will realize Maslow’s state of self-actualization . You will believe you have become the person in life that you feel you were meant to be.

Following the economic crisis that began in 2008, the sales of new automobiles dropped sharply virtually everywhere around the world—except the sales of Hyundai vehicles. Hyundai understood that people needed to feel secure and safe and ran an ad campaign that assured car buyers they could return their vehicles if they couldn’t make the payments on them without damaging their credit. Seeing Hyundai’s success, other carmakers began offering similar programs. Likewise, banks began offering “worry-free” mortgages to ease the minds of would-be homebuyers. For a fee of about $500, First Mortgage Corp., a Texas-based bank, offered to make a homeowner’s mortgage payment for six months if he or she got laid off (Jares, 2010).

While achieving self-actualization may be a goal for many individuals in the United States, consumers in Eastern cultures may focus more on belongingness and group needs. Marketers look at cultural differences in addition to individual needs. The importance of groups affects advertising (using groups versus individuals) and product decisions.

Perception is how you interpret the world around you and make sense of it in your brain. You do so via stimuli that affect your different senses—sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. How you combine these senses also makes a difference. For example, in one study, consumers were blindfolded and asked to drink a new brand of clear beer. Most of them said the product tasted like regular beer. However, when the blindfolds came off and they drank the beer, many of them described it as “watery” tasting (Ries, 2009).

Consumers are bombarded with messages on television, radio, magazines, the Internet, and even bathroom walls. The average consumer is exposed to about three thousand advertisements per day (Lasn, 1999). Consumers are surfing the Internet, watching television, and checking their cell phones for text messages simultaneously. Some, but not all, information makes it into our brains. Selecting information we see or hear (e.g., television shows or magazines) is called selective exposure.

Have you ever read or thought about something and then started noticing ads and information about it popping up everywhere? Many people are more perceptive to advertisements for products they need. Selective attention is the process of filtering out information based on how relevant it is to you. It’s been described as a “suit of armor” that helps you filter out information you don’t need. At other times, people forget information, even if it’s quite relevant to them, which is called selective retention . Often the information contradicts the person’s belief. A longtime chain smoker who forgets much of the information communicated during an antismoking commercial is an example. To be sure their advertising messages get through to you and you remember them, companies use repetition. How tired of iPhone commercials were you before they tapered off? How often do you see the same commercial aired during a single television show?

Another potential problem that advertisers (or your friends) may experience is selective distortion or misinterpretation of the intended message. Promotions for weight loss products show models that look slim and trim after using their products, and consumers may believe they will look like the model if they use the product. They misinterpret other factors such as how the model looked before or how long it will take to achieve the results. Similarly, have you ever told someone a story about a friend and that person told another person who told someone else? By the time the story gets back to you, it is completely different. The same thing can happen with many types of messages.

A Parody of an iPhone Commercial

Check out this parody on Apple’s iPhone commercial.

Using surprising stimuli or shock advertising is also a technique that works. One study found that shocking content increased attention, benefited memory, and positively influenced behavior among a group of university students (Dahl, et. al., 2003).

Subliminal advertising is the opposite of shock advertising and involves exposing consumers to marketing stimuli such as photos, ads, and messages by stealthily embedding them in movies, ads, and other media. Although there is no evidence that subliminal advertising works, years ago the words Drink Coca-Cola were flashed for a millisecond on a movie screen. Consumers were thought to perceive the information subconsciously and to be influenced to buy the products shown. Many people considered the practice to be subversive, and in 1974, the Federal Communications Commission condemned it. Much of the original research on subliminal advertising, conducted by a researcher trying to drum up business for his market research firm, was fabricated (Crossen, 2007). People are still fascinated by subliminal advertising, however. To create “buzz” about the television show The Mole in 2008, ABC began hyping it by airing short commercials composed of just a few frames. If you blinked, you missed it. Some television stations actually called ABC to figure out what was going on. One-second ads were later rolled out to movie theaters (Adalian, 2008).

Different consumers perceive information differently. A couple of frames about The Mole might make you want to see the television show. However, your friend might see the ad, find it stupid, and never tune in to watch the show. One man sees Pledge, an outstanding furniture polish, while another sees a can of spray no different from any other furniture polish. One woman sees a luxurious Gucci purse, and the other sees an overpriced bag to hold keys and makeup (Chartrand, 2009).

Learning refers to the process by which consumers change their behavior after they gain information or experience. It’s the reason you don’t buy a bad product twice. Learning doesn’t just affect what you buy; it affects how you shop. People with limited experience about a product or brand generally seek out more information than people who have used a product before.

Companies try to get consumers to learn about their products in different ways. Car dealerships offer test drives. Pharmaceutical reps leave samples and brochures at doctor’s offices. Other companies give consumers free samples. To promote its new line of coffees, McDonald’s offered customers free samples to try. Have you ever eaten the food samples in a grocery store? While sampling is an expensive strategy, it gets consumers to try the product and many customers buy it, especially right after trying in the store.

Another kind of learning is operant or instrumental conditioning , which is what occurs when researchers are able to get a mouse to run through a maze for a piece of cheese or a dog to salivate just by ringing a bell. In other words, learning occurs through repetitive behavior that has positive or negative consequences. Companies engage in operant conditioning by rewarding consumers, which cause consumers to want to repeat their purchasing behaviors. Prizes and toys that come in Cracker Jacks and McDonald’s Happy Meals, free tans offered with gym memberships, a free sandwich after a certain number of purchases, and free car washes when you fill up your car with a tank of gas are examples.

Another learning process called classical conditioning occurs by associating a conditioned stimulus (CS) with an unconditioned stimulus (US) to get a particular response. The more frequently the CS is linked with the US, the faster learning occurs and this is what advertisers and businesses try to do. Think about a meal at a restaurant where the food was really good and you went with someone special. You like the person and want to go out again. It could be that classical conditioning occurred. That is, the food produced a good feeling and you may associate the person with the food, thus producing a good feeling about the person.

Attitudes are “mental positions” or emotional feelings, favorable or unfavorable evaluations, and action tendencies people have about products, services, companies, ideas, issues, or institutions 3 . Attitudes tend to be enduring, and because they are based on people’s values and beliefs, they are hard to change. Companies want people to have positive feelings about their offerings. A few years ago, KFC began running ads to the effect that fried chicken was healthy—until the U.S. Federal Trade Commission told the company to stop. Wendy’s slogan that its products are “way better than fast food” is another example. Fast food has a negative connotation, so Wendy’s is trying to get consumers to think about its offerings as being better.

An example of a shift in consumers’ attitudes occurred when the taxpayer-paid government bailouts of big banks that began in 2008 provoked the wrath of Americans, creating an opportunity for small banks not involved in the credit bailout and subprime mortgage mess. The Worthington National Bank, a small bank in Fort Worth, Texas, ran billboards reading: “Did Your Bank Take a Bailout? We didn’t.” Another read: “Just Say NO to Bailout Banks. Bank Responsibly!” The Worthington Bank received tens of millions in new deposits soon after running these campaigns (Mantone, 2009).

Societal Factors

Situational factors, personal factors, and psychological factors influence what you buy, but only on a temporary basis. Societal factors are a bit different. They are more outward and have broad influences on your beliefs and the way you do things. They depend on the world around you and how it works.

Culture refers to the shared beliefs, customs, behaviors, and attitudes that characterize a society. Culture is a handed down way of life and is often considered the broadest influence on a consumer’s behavior. Your culture prescribes the way in which you should live and has a huge effect on the things you purchase. For example, in Beirut, Lebanon, women can often be seen wearing miniskirts. If you’re a woman in Afghanistan wearing a miniskirt, however, you could face bodily harm or death. In Afghanistan women generally wear burqas , which cover them completely from head to toe. Similarly, in Saudi Arabia, women must wear what’s called an abaya , or long black garment. Interestingly, abayas have become big business in recent years. They come in many styles, cuts, and fabrics and some are encrusted with jewels and cost thousands of dollars. To read about the fashions women in Muslim countries wear, check out the following article: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1210781,00.html .

Even cultures that share many of the same values as the United States can be quite different. Following the meltdown of the financial markets in 2008, countries around the world were pressed by the United States to engage in deficit spending to stimulate the worldwide economy. The plan was a hard sell both to German politicians and to the German people in general. Most Germans don’t own credit cards and running up a lot of debt is something people in that culture generally don’t do. Credit card companies such as Visa, American Express, and MasterCard must understand cultural perceptions about credit.

Subcultures

A subculture is a group of people within a culture who are different from the dominant culture but have something in common with one another such as common interests, vocations or jobs, religions, ethnic backgrounds, and geographic locations. The fastest-growing subculture in the United States consists of people of Hispanic origin, followed by Asian Americans, and African Americans. The purchasing power of U.S. Hispanics continues to grow, exceeding $1 trillion in 2010 4 . Home Depot has launched a Spanish version of its Web site. Walmart is in the process of converting some of its Neighborhood Markets into stores designed to appeal to Hispanics. The Supermarcado de Walmart stores are located in Hispanic neighborhoods and feature elements such as cafés serving Latino pastries and coffee and full meat and fish counters (Birchall, 2009). Marketing products based on the ethnicity of consumers is useful but may become harder to do in the future because the boundaries between ethnic groups are blurring.

Care to join the subculture of the “Otherkin”? Otherkins are primarily Internet users who believe they are reincarnations of mythological or legendary creatures—angels, demons, vampires—you name it. To read more about the Otherkins and seven other bizarre subcultures, visit http://www.oddee.com/item_96676.aspx .

Zior_ – Another Vampire Photo – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Subcultures, such as college students, can develop in response to people’s interests, similarities, and behaviors that allow marketing professionals to design specific products for them. You have probably heard of the hip-hop subculture, people who in engage in extreme types of sports such as helicopter skiing or people who play the fantasy game Dungeons and Dragons.

Social Class

A social class is a group of people who have the same social, economic, or educational status in society 5 . While income helps define social class, the primary variable determining social class is occupation. To some degree, consumers in the same social class exhibit similar purchasing behavior. In many countries, people are expected to marry within their own social class. When asked, people tend to say they are middle class, which is not always correct. Have you ever been surprised to find out that someone you knew who was wealthy drove a beat-up old car or wore old clothes and shoes or that someone who isn’t wealthy owns a Mercedes or other upscale vehicle? While some products may appeal to people in a social class, you can’t assume a person is in a certain social class because they either have or don’t have certain products or brands.

Table 3.1 “An Example of Social Classes and Buying Patterns” shows seven classes of American consumers along with the types of car brands they might buy. Keep in mind that the U.S. market is just a fraction of the world market. The rise of the middle class in India and China is creating opportunities for many companies to successfully sustain their products. For example, China has begun to overtake the United States as the world’s largest auto market 6 .

Table 3.1 An Example of Social Classes and Buying Patterns

In a recession when luxury buyers are harder to come by, the makers of upscale brands may want their customer bases to be as large as possible. However, companies don’t want to risk “cheapening” their brands. That’s why, for example, Smart Cars, which are made by BMW, don’t have the BMW label on them. For a time, Tiffany’s sold a cheaper line of silver jewelry to a lot of customers. However, the company later worried that its reputation was being tarnished by the line. Keep in mind that a product’s price is to some extent determined by supply and demand. Luxury brands therefore try to keep the supply of their products in check so their prices remain high.

The whiskey brand Johnnie Walker has managed to expand its market share without cheapening the brand by producing a few lower-priced versions of the whiskey and putting them in bottles with different labels.

Carlos Ayala – Johnnie Walker Black Label – CC BY-NC 2.0.

Some companies, such as Johnnie Walker, have managed to capture market share by introducing “lower echelon” brands without damaging their luxury brands. The company’s whiskeys come in bottles with red, green, blue, black, and gold labels. The blue label is the company’s best product. Every blue-label bottle has a serial number and is sold in a silk-lined box, accompanied by a certificate of authenticity 7 .

Reference Groups and Opinion Leaders

Reference groups are groups (social groups, work groups, family, or close friends) a consumer identifies with and may want to join. They influence consumers’ attitudes and behavior. If you have ever dreamed of being a professional player of basketball or another sport, you have an aspirational reference group. That’s why, for example, Nike hires celebrities such as Michael Jordan to pitch the company’s products. There may also be dissociative groups or groups where a consumer does not want to be associated.

Opinion leaders are people with expertise in certain areas. Consumers respect these people and often ask their opinions before they buy goods and services. An information technology (IT) specialist with a great deal of knowledge about computer brands is an example. These people’s purchases often lie at the forefront of leading trends. The IT specialist is probably a person who has the latest and greatest tech products, and his opinion of them is likely to carry more weight with you than any sort of advertisement.

Today’s companies are using different techniques to reach opinion leaders. Network analysis using special software is one way of doing so. Orgnet.com has developed software for this purpose. Orgnet’s software doesn’t mine sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, though. Instead, it’s based on sophisticated techniques that unearthed the links between Al Qaeda terrorists. Explains Valdis Krebs, the company’s founder: “Pharmaceutical firms want to identify who the key opinion leaders are. They don’t want to sell a new drug to everyone. They want to sell to the 60 key oncologists” (Campbell, 2004).

Most market researchers consider a person’s family to be one of the most important influences on their buying behavior. Like it or not, you are more like your parents than you think, at least in terms of your consumption patterns. Many of the things you buy and don’t buy are a result of what your parents bought when you were growing up. Products such as the brand of soap and toothpaste your parents bought and used, and even the “brand” of politics they leaned toward (Democratic or Republican) are examples of the products you may favor as an adult.

Companies are interested in which family members have the most influence over certain purchases. Children have a great deal of influence over many household purchases. For example, in 2003 nearly half (47 percent) of nine- to seventeen-year-olds were asked by parents to go online to find out about products or services, compared to 37 percent in 2001. IKEA used this knowledge to design their showrooms. The children’s bedrooms feature fun beds with appealing comforters so children will be prompted to identify and ask for what they want 8 .

Marketing to children has come under increasing scrutiny. Some critics accuse companies of deliberately manipulating children to nag their parents for certain products. For example, even though tickets for Hannah Montana concerts ranged from hundreds to thousands of dollars, the concerts often still sold out. However, as one writer put it, exploiting “pester power” is not always ultimately in the long-term interests of advertisers if it alienates kids’ parents (Waddell, 2009).

Key Takeaway

Situational influences are temporary conditions that affect how buyers behave. They include physical factors such as a store’s buying locations, layout, music, lighting, and even scent. Companies try to make the physical factors in which consumers shop as favorable as possible. If they can’t, they utilize other tactics such as discounts. The consumer’s social situation, time factors, the reason for their purchases, and their moods also affect their buying behavior.
Your personality describes your disposition as other people see it. Market researchers believe people buy products to enhance how they feel about themselves. Your gender also affects what you buy and how you shop. Women shop differently than men. However, there’s some evidence that this is changing. Younger men and women are beginning to shop more alike. People buy different things based on their ages and life stages. A person’s cognitive age is how old one “feels” oneself to be. To further understand consumers and connect with them, companies have begun looking more closely at their lifestyles (what they do, how they spend their time, what their priorities and values are, and how they see the world).
Psychologist Abraham Maslow theorized that people have to fulfill their basic needs—like the need for food, water, and sleep—before they can begin fulfilling higher-level needs. Perception is how you interpret the world around you and make sense of it in your brain. To be sure their advertising messages get through to you, companies often resort to repetition. Shocking advertising and product placement are two other methods. Learning is the process by which consumers change their behavior after they gain information about or experience with a product. Consumers’ attitudes are the “mental positions” people take based on their values and beliefs. Attitudes tend to be enduring and are often difficult for companies to change.
Culture prescribes the way in which you should live and affects the things you purchase. A subculture is a group of people within a culture who are different from the dominant culture but have something in common with one another—common interests, vocations or jobs, religions, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientations, and so forth. To some degree, consumers in the same social class exhibit similar purchasing behavior. Most market researchers consider a person’s family to be one of the biggest determinants of buying behavior. Reference groups are groups that a consumer identifies with and wants to join. Companies often hire celebrities to endorse their products to appeal to people’s reference groups. Opinion leaders are people with expertise in certain areas. Consumers respect these people and often ask their opinions before they buy goods and services.

Review Questions

Explain what physical factors, social situations, time factors, and/or moods have affected your buying behavior for different products.
Explain how someone’s personality differs from his or her self-concept. How does the person’s ideal self-concept come into play in a consumer behavior context?
Describe how buying patterns and purchase decisions may vary by age, gender, and stage of life.
Why are companies interested in consumers’ cognitive ages and lifestyle factors?
How does the process of perception work and how can companies use it to their advantage in their marketing?
How do Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and learning affect how companies market to consumers?
Why do people’s cultures and subcultures affect what they buy?
How do subcultures differ from cultures? Can you belong to more than one culture or subculture?
How are companies trying to reach opinion leaders?

1 “Wal-Mart Unveils Plans for Own-Label Revamp,” Financial Times , March 17, 2009, 15.

2 “Designing Cars for the Elderly: A Design Story,” http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/may2008/gb2008056_154197.htm (accessed April 13, 2012).

3 “Dictionary of Marketing Terms,” http://www.allbusiness.com/glossaries/marketing/4941810-1.html (accessed October 14, 2009).

4 “Latino Purchasing Power Now Pegged at $1 Trillion,” Mariowire.com, May 4, 2011, http://www.mariowire.com/2011/05/04/latino-purchasing-power-1-trillion/ .

5 Princeton University, “WordNet,” http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=social+class&sub=Search+WordNet&o2=&o0=1&o7=&o5=&o1 =1&o6=&o4=&o3=&h= (accessed October 14, 2009).

6 “More Cars Sold in China than in January,” France 24 , February 10, 2009, http://www.france24.com/en/20090210-more-cars-sold-china-us-january-auto-market (accessed October 14, 2009).

7 “Johnnie Walker,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnnie_Walker (accessed October 14, 2009).

8 “Teen Market Profile,” Mediamark Research, 2003, http://www.magazine.org/content/files/teenprofile04.pdf (accessed December 4, 2009).

Adalian, J., “ABC Hopes ‘Mole’ Isn’t Just a Blip,” Television Week , June 2, 2008, 3.

Barak B. and Steven Gould, “Alternative Age Measures: A Research Agenda,” in Advances in Consumer Research , vol. 12, ed. Elizabeth C. Hirschman and Morris B. Holbrook (Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research, 1985), 53–58.

Berner, R., “Detergent Can Be So Much More,” BusinessWeek , May 1, 2006, 66–68.

Birchall, J., “Wal-Mart Looks to Hispanic Market in Expansion Drive,” Financial Times , March 13, 2009, 18.

Bird, A., “Retail Industry,” Encyclopedia of Japanese Business and Management (London: Routledge, 2002), 399–400.

Campbell, A., “Marketing to Opinion Leaders,” Small Business Trends , June 28, 2004, http://smallbiztrends.com/2004/06/marketing-to-opinion-leaders.html (accessed October 13, 2009).

Chartrand, J., “Why Targeting Selective Perception Captures Immediate Attention,” http://www.copyblogger.com/selective-perception (accessed October 14, 2009).

Crossen, C., “For a Time in the ’50s, A Huckster Fanned Fears of Ad ‘Hypnosis,’” Wall Street Journal , November 5, 2007, eastern edition, B1.

Dahl, D. W., Kristina D. Frankenberger, and Rajesh V. Manchanda, “Does It Pay to Shock? Reactions to Shocking and Nonshocking Advertising Content among University Students,” Journal of Advertising Research 43, no. 3 (2003): 268–80.

Gaumer C. J. and William C. Leif, “Social Facilitation: Affect and Application in Consumer Buying Situations,” Journal of Food Products Marketing 11, no. 1 (2005): 75–82.

Hill J. and Susan K. Harmon, “Male Gender Role Beliefs, Coupon Use and Bargain Hunting,” Academy of Marketing Studies Journal 11, no. 2 (2007): 107–21.

Hornik J. and Giulia Miniero, “Synchrony Effects on Customers’ Responses and Behaviors,” International Journal of Research in Marketing 26, no. 1 (2009): 34–40.

Jares, A., “New Programs Are Taking Worries from Home Buying,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram , March 7, 2010, 1C–2C.

Lasn, K., Culture Jam: The Uncooling of America (New York: William Morrow & Company, 1999).

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Matilla A. S. and Jochen Wirtz, “The Role of Store Environmental Stimulation and Social Factors on Impulse Purchasing,” Journal of Services Marketing 22, no. 7 (2008): 562–67.

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Rosenbloom S., (New York Times News Service), “Where Have All the Shoppers Gone?” Fort Worth Star-Telegram , March 18, 2009, 5E.

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Schmitt, G., “Hunters and Gatherers,” Dealernews 44, no. 8 (2008): 72. The article references the 2006 Behavioral Tracking Study by Miller Brewing Company.

Waddell, R., “Miley Strikes Back,” Billboard , June 27, 2009, 7–8.

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3.1: Understanding Consumer Markets and Buying Behavior

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Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Define consumer buying behavior.
Explain the nature of the buyer’s black box.
Describe how consumer behavior is characterized into types.

Consumer Markets and Consumer Buying Behavior Defined

How many buying decisions did you make today? Perhaps you stopped on the way to work or class to buy a soft drink or coffee, went to the grocery store on the way home to get bread or milk, or ordered something online. You likely make buying decisions nearly every day and probably don’t give most of those decisions much thought. But the way you make those decisions is significant for marketers, because if they can understand why you buy what you buy and when you buy it, they can use that information to boost revenue.

Consumer buying behavior refers to the decisions and actions people undertake to buy products or services for personal use. In other words, it’s the actions you take before buying a product or service, and as you will see, many factors influence that behavior. You and all other consumers combine to make up the consumer market .

The Buyer’s Black Box

It stands to reason that the hundreds of millions of people who make up the global consumer market don’t all buy the same products and services. Why do certain people prefer different items than others? The answer lies in the factors that influence consumer buying behavior. One model of consumer buying behavior is what’s known as the buyer’s black box , which is named as such because little is known about what goes on in the human mind. It’s also known as the stimulus-response model.

As illustrated in the model shown in Figure 3.2, consumer buying behavior is based on stimuli coming from a variety of sources—from marketers in terms of the 4Ps (product, price, promotion, and place) , as well as from environmental stimuli, such as economic factors, legal/political factors, and technological and cultural factors.

These stimuli go into your “black box,” which consists of two parts: buyer characteristics such as beliefs and attitudes, motives, perceptions, and values, and the buyer decision-making process, which is covered later in the chapter. Your response is the outcome of the thinking that takes place in that black box. What will you buy, where, when, how often, and how much?

Types of Consumer Buying Behavior

Buying behavior is not influenced solely by the external environment. It’s also determined by your level of involvement in a purchase and the amount of risk involved in the purchase. There are four types of consumer buying behavior, as shown in Figure 3.3.

Complex buying behavior occurs when you make a significant or expensive purchase, like buying a new car. Because you likely don’t buy a new car frequently, you’re highly involved in the buying decision, and you probably research different vehicles or talk with friends or family before reaching your decision. By that time, you’re likely convinced that there’s a significant difference among cars, and you’ve developed your own unique set of criteria that helps you decide on your purchase.

Dissonance-reducing buying behavior occurs when you’re highly involved in a purchase but see little difference among brands. Let’s say you’re replacing the flooring in your kitchen with ceramic tile—another expensive, infrequent purchase. You might think that all brands of ceramic tile in a certain price range are “about the same,” so you might shop around to see what’s available, but you’ll probably buy rather quickly, perhaps as a result of a good price or availability. However, after you’ve made your purchase, you may experience post-purchase dissonance (also known as buyer’s remorse) when you notice some disadvantages of the tile you purchased or hear good things about a brand you didn’t purchase.

Habitual buying behavior has low involvement in the purchase decision because it’s often a repeat buy, and you don’t perceive much brand differentiation. Perhaps you usually buy a certain brand of organic milk, but you don’t have strong brand loyalty. If your regular brand isn’t available at the store or another brand is on sale, you’ll probably buy a different brand.

Variety-seeking buying behavior has the lowest customer involvement because brand switching is your norm. You may not be unhappy with your last purchase of tortilla chips, but you simply want to try something new. It’s a matter of brand switching for the sake of variety rather than because of dissatisfaction with your previous purchase.

Link to Learning: The 4Ps and Consumer Behavior

Watch this short, humorous 4Ps video as a way to help you remember the concept. This video also includes several examples of target markets and how a marketer might respond.

Consumer behavior is an important marketing topic, and depending on the marketing program at your institution, you may have the opportunity to take a consumer behavior course and learn more about the topics covered above. Studying consumer behavior is important in marketing because it will teach you how to best know your customer, an integral aspect to marketing a product or service. You can also watch this selfLearn-en video to get a stronger grasp of consumer behavior.

As mentioned, environmental factors have an impact on consumer behavior. Can you think of a recent environmental influence that has had a significant impact? The coronavirus pandemic has probably been the most influential in recent years, and for many reasons! We still have a lot to learn about the impacts of the pandemic, and new information is being released daily about changing human behavior and the impact on marketing. For example, in this Google article, the author shares a cultural anthropologist’s insights for understanding consumer behavior and how it relates to three core needs all people experience—self-care, social connection, and identity—and how these needs correlate to recent YouTube video trends. Learn about how marketers can respond to this trend.

Continually trying to understand environmental influences will keep you on the cutting edge and ahead of the competition. It’s a great practice to always be looking for the latest information so that you can shift your strategies as needed. Bain & Company is an example of one company that wanted to understand how the pandemic changed consumer behavior. The company ran a survey in 2021 to better understand the impact of the pandemic, and it found five trends from the data.

A survey from Accenture , one of the top-ranked consulting firms in the world, found that the pandemic caused 50 percent of consumers to evaluate their purpose and what’s important to them. Read more about the findings in this article.

Always be looking for information to be the best marketer you can be!

Knowledge Check

It’s time to check your knowledge on the concepts presented in this section. Refer to the Answer Key at the end of the book for feedback.

You’re considering buying a widescreen TV. You’ve researched different features, looked up and reviewed models on the Internet, and even asked a few friends for their recommendations. What type of buying behavior are you exhibiting?

Dissonance-reducing buying behavior
Variety-seeking buying behavior
Complex buying behavior
Habitual buying behavior

In the buyer’s black box, external stimuli that are planned and created by the producer and/or seller are known as ________ stimuli.

technological

Samantha sees a TV commercial announcing that a mattress she’s been considering is on sale through the holiday weekend and makes plans to visit the store the next day in order to take advantage of the sale. In terms of the buyer’s black box, how would this TV commercial be characterized?

Product choice
Brand choice
Social stimuli
Purchase timing

You’re at the grocery store buying potato chips for a barbeque you’re having this weekend. You normally buy Lay’s potato chips, but you notice that Ruffles are on sale, so you pick up a few bags of Ruffles. What buying behavior have you displayed?

The decisions and actions people undertake to buy products or services for personal use are known as ________.

the consumer market
the buyer’s black box
consumer buying behavior
complex buying behavior

BUS203: Principles of Marketing

how do consumer characteristics influence buying behavior essay

How People Make Buying Decisions

Read this chapter, which discusses consumers' decision-making process and examines the situational, personal, psychological, and societal factors influencing their buying decisions.

Factors That Influence Consumers' Buying Behavior

Learning objectives.

Describe the personal and psychological factors that may influence what consumers buy and when they buy it.
Explain what marketing professionals can do to influence consumers' behavior.
Explain how looking at lifestyle information helps firms understand what consumers want to purchase.
Explain how Maslow's hierarchy of needs works.
Explain how culture, subcultures, social classes, families, and reference groups affect consumers' buying behavior.

You've been a consumer with purchasing power for much longer than you probably realize - since the first time you were asked which cereal or toy you wanted. Over the years, you've developed rules of thumb or mental shortcuts providing a systematic way to choose among alternatives, even if you aren't aware of it. Other consumers follow a similar process, but different people, no matter how similar they are, make different purchasing decisions. You might be very interested in purchasing a Smart Car, but your best friend might want to buy a Ford F-150 truck. What factors influenced your decision and what factors influenced your friend's decision? As we mentioned earlier in the chapter, consumer behavior is influenced by many things, including environmental and marketing factors, the situation, personal and psychological factors, family, and culture. Businesses try to figure out trends so they can reach the people most likely to buy their products in the most cost-effective way possible. Businesses often try to influence a consumer's behavior with things they can control such as the layout of a store, music, grouping and availability of products, pricing, and advertising. While some influences may be temporary and others are long lasting, different factors can affect how buyers behave - whether they influence you to make a purchase, buy additional products, or buy nothing at all. Let's now look at some of the influences on consumer behavior in more detail.

Module 4: Consumer Behavior

Buying behaviors: personal factors, learning objectives.

Describe the personal factors that may influence what consumers buy and when they buy it.
Explain what marketing professionals can do to influence consumers’ behavior.
Explain how looking at lifestyle information helps firms understand what consumers want to purchase.

Personal Factors

Personality and self-concept.

Gender, Age, and Stage of Life

While demographic variables such as income, education, and marital status are important, we will look at gender, age, and stage of life and how they influence purchase decisions. Men and women need and buy different products. They also shop differently and in general, have different attitudes about shopping. You know the old stereotypes. Men see what they want and buy it, but women “try on everything and shop ‘til they drop.” There’s some truth to the stereotypes. That’s why you see so many advertisements directed at one sex or the other—beer commercials that air on ESPN and commercials for household products that air on Lifetime. Women influence fully two-thirds of all household product purchases, whereas men buy about three-quarters of all alcoholic beverages. The article references the 2006 Behavioral Tracking Study by Miller Brewing Company. The shopping differences between men and women seem to be changing, though. Younger, well-educated men are less likely to believe grocery shopping is a woman’s job and would be more inclined to bargain shop and use coupons if the coupons were properly targeted at them. One survey found that approximately 45 percent of married men actually like shopping and consider it relaxing.

Empty nesters and baby boomers are a huge market that companies are trying to tap. Ford and other car companies have created “aging suits” for young employees to wear when they’re designing automobiles. “ The suit simulates the restricted mobility and vision people experience as they get older. Car designers can then figure out how to configure the automobiles to better meet the needs of these consumers.

http://youtu.be/_hcw17EsE7A?t=2s

Your chronological age , or actual age in years, is one thing. Your cognitive age , or how old you perceive yourself to be, is another. A person’s cognitive age affects his or her activities and sparks interests consistent with his or her perceived age. Cognitive age is a significant predictor of consumer behaviors, including people’s dining out, watching television, going to bars and dance clubs, playing computer games, and shopping. Companies have found that many consumers feel younger than their chronological age and don’t take kindly to products that feature “old folks” because they can’t identify with them.

Self-check Questions. Provided by : Lumen Learning. Located at : http://www.openassessments.com/assessments/431 . License : CC BY: Attribution
Principles of Marketing. Authored by : Anonymous. Located at : http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/marketing-principles-v2.0/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Heineken Walk-in Fridge. Authored by : boglebowskiwalter. Located at : http://youtu.be/yIutgtzwhAc . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Standard YouTube License
Car Makers Design Special Aging Suit. Authored by : NTDTV. Located at : http://youtu.be/_hcw17EsE7A?t=2s . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright . License Terms : Standard YouTube License

3.2 Factors That Influence Consumer Buying Behavior

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

1 List and describe the cultural factors that influence consumer buying behavior.
2 Explain the social factors that impact consumer buying behavior.
3 Discuss the personal factors that influence consumer buying behavior.
4 Describe the psychological factors that influence consumer buying behavior.
5 Explain situational factors that impact consumer buying behavior.

Cultural Factors That Influence Consumer Buying Behavior

Why people buy isn’t always a straightforward question. Think about the last time you bought a car, a bike, or other item. Why did you buy that specific make and model? Was it because its sleek style made you feel good about yourself? Perhaps you bought a particular brand because someone in your family bought the same brand. These are just a couple of examples of some of the factors that influence consumer buying behavior. Let’s examine some others.

Cultural factors comprise a set of values or ideologies of a particular community or group of individuals. These can include culture, subcultures, social class, and gender as outlined in Figure 3.4 .

Culture refers to the values, ideas, and attitudes that are learned and shared among members of a group. Human behavior is largely learned. When you were a child, you learned basic values, perceptions, wants, and behaviors from your family and other external influences like the schools and churches you attended. Consider how these values and attitudes have shaped your buying behavior. For example, in a traditional Hindu wedding in India, a bride may wear red lehenga to the wedding, whereas Christian brides typically wear white. In India, widows are expected to wear white, whereas widows in the United States and other parts of the world generally wear more somber colors to a funeral. 2

A subculture is a group of people, such as environmentalists or bodybuilders, who share a set of values. Ethnic and racial groups share the language, food, and culture of their heritage. Other subcultures, like the biker culture, which revolves around a dedication to motorcycles, are united by shared experiences. The Amish subculture is known for its conservative beliefs and reluctance to adapt to modern technology. Think about what subculture(s) you may belong to and how they influence your buying behavior. For example, hip-hop music has long been associated with fashion, particularly sneakers. Run DMC’s 1986 hit “My Adidas” led to the first endorsement deal between a fashion brand and a musical act, setting the stage for lucrative partnerships spanning the decades since—Master P with Converse , Jay-Z and 50 Cent with Reebok , Missy Elliott and Big Sean with Adidas , and Drake with Nike .

Link to Learning

Failures and inspirations.

Cultural factors play a major role in determining how best to market to consumers. There are numerous examples of company efforts that failed because they did not reflect an understanding of the culture in a particular market. Watch this CNBC video on why Starbucks failed in Australia and read this article about how Coca-Cola and PepsiCo failed when they first moved into the Chinese market.

Also check out this CNBC video about why 7-Eleven failed in Indonesia.

Failures are always important because they come with learned knowledge, and if you understand the WHY behind the failure, the learning can lead to shifts in strategy and possible success. Read the inspiring story behind Run DMC ’s revolutionary market deal with Adidas and how it opened the door for current artists like 50 Cent, Jay-Z, and Puffy.

For more success stories, check out these videos about numerous companies that got it right . Examples include stories from Rihanna’s Fenty beauty line, Adobe ’s “When I See Black” ad, Bumble ’s “Find Me on Bumble” campaign, and many more!

Your social class is also an important influence on your buying behavior. Sociologists base definitions of social class on several different factors, including income, occupation, and education. While there is disagreement on the number of social classes defined by income in the United States, many sociologists suggest five social classes: upper class, upper-middle class, lower-middle class, working class, and the economically disadvantaged. 3 Income is largely defined by disposable income (the money you have left to spend or save after taxes are deducted), but its influence goes beyond just dollars, euros, yen, etc. For example, a lower-middle-class individual might focus primarily on price when considering a product, whereas an upper-middle-class person might consider product quality and features before price. However, you also can be influenced by a social class to which you don’t belong but by which you want to be accepted. Have you ever spent money you really didn’t have on brand name running shoes or a designer purse because that’s what your friends have?

Finally, your gender plays an important role in your buying behavior. People of different genders not only want different products as a result of their upbringing and socialization, but they approach shopping itself with different motives, perspectives, and considerations. While it’s always dangerous to stereotype, those who identify as male typically follow a utilitarian, more logic-based approach when shopping. They want a quick, effortless shopping experience. Those who identify as female, on the other hand, make decisions on a more emotional level. Zappos considers these different motives and provides different layouts on their landing pages for different genders. While the “male” version focuses on providing clear navigation by product categories, the “female” version aims to sell on emotion. 4

Behind the Gender Differences

Gender differences lead to different buying behaviors. Read this article about one such example, Birchbox , a hair care and skin care subscription service. For even more information, check out this article about the reasons for the differences , which include purpose, experience, brain make-up, and more. Interesting reads!

You can also watch this Gaby Barrios TED Talk. Barrios is a marketing expert who speaks about how targeting consumers based on gender is bad for business.

This humorous video from The Checkout, a TV show about consumer affairs, discusses gender marketing packaging decisions and their impact on your wallet.

Another video about fashion brands focuses on how their parent companies leverage gender strategies.

Careers In Marketing

Women in marketing.

Let’s look at gender from another angle—women advancing in marketing. Part of a series about jobs in marketing , this article examines equity in the world of marketing. Findings include data on gender balance and inequality, and guidance on ways to improve.

For an inspirational moment, be sure to read these heartwarming stories about six mothers of great marketers .

Social Factors That Influence Consumer Buying Behavior

Social factors are those factors that are prevalent in the society where the consumer lives. Every society is composed of individuals who have different preferences and behaviors, and these individuals influence the personal preferences of others in the society. Humans are social individuals, and the influences of people’s family, reference groups, and roles and status (refer to Figure 3.5 ) have a huge impact on their buying behavior.

Let’s first consider the influence of family . It is generally believed that most people pass through two families: a family of orientation (i.e., the family to which you were born or with whom you grew up) and a family of procreation (the family formed through marriage or cohabitation, including your spouse, partner, and/or children). Consider first the family of orientation. When you were growing up, whether or not you recognized it, you likely developed some degree of buying behavior through watching adult members of your household and probably tend to buy the same products or services as you grow older. Was your father a die-hard Chevy driver? If so, the chances are good that you’ll probably at least consider buying a Chevy, too. Now consider the influence that your spouse, partner, and/or children have on your buying behavior. You may want that Chevy pickup because that’s what your father drove, but your spouse or partner may subtly (or perhaps not so subtly) sway you toward a Chevy crossover SUV because it’s more practical with kids to transport to school, sports, and other activities.

Reference groups are those groups with which you like to be associated. These can be formal groups, such as members of a country club, church, or professional group, or informal groups of friends or acquaintances. These groups serve as role models and inspirations, and they influence what types of products you buy and which brands you choose. Reference groups are characterized by having opinion leaders—people who influence others. These opinion leaders aren’t necessarily higher-income or better educated, but others view them as having more expertise in a particular area. For example, a teenage girl may look to the opinion leader in her reference group of friends for fashion guidance, or a college student might aspire to getting an advanced degree from the same university as an admired professor. Social media influencers also play a role here. Consider the influence that celebrities like Kendall Jenner (with more than 217 million Instagram followers) 5 or Leo Messi (with over 310 million Instagram followers) 6 have on individuals.

All people assume different roles and status depending upon the groups, clubs, family, or organizations to which they belong. For example, a working mother who is taking classes at the local community college assumes three roles at varying times—that of an employee, a mother, and a student. Her buying decisions will be influenced by each of these roles at different times. When she is shopping for clothing, her purchases may be influenced by any or all of these roles—professional attire for the office, casual clothes for classes, or yoga pants for home.

Personal Factors That Impact Consumer Buying Behavior

Personal factors, such as your occupation, age and life cycle stage, economic situation, lifestyle, and personality and self-concept also play a major role in your buying behavior (refer to Figure 3.6 ). Let’s examine each of these in more detail.

Age is a major factor that influences buying behavior because consumer needs and wants change with age. Your buying habits as a teenager or twentysomething are likely to be vastly different from your buying habits in middle age and beyond. Consider the four generational cohorts currently comprising the consumer market:

Baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) are currently in their 60s and 70s. This generational cohort is approximately 70 million people strong in the United States and accounts for $2.6 trillion in buying power, 7 so you can imagine its impact on the consumer market. What types of products would you expect baby boomers to buy? Key categories for this group of buyers include pharmacy and health care products, household goods and appliances, wine, books (both digital and physical), cosmetics, and skin care products. 8
Generation X (born between 1965 and 1979/80) are currently in their 40s and 50s. This cohort is approximately 65 million strong 9 and generally has more spending power than younger generational cohorts because they’re at or reaching the peak of their careers, and many Gen Xers are dual-income families. 10 This makes them an optimal target for higher-end brands and convenience-related goods, like made-to-order or prepared meals from the grocery store.
Generation Y , also known as Millennials , (born between 1981 and 1994/96) are currently in their 20s and 30s. This cohort is the largest generation group in the United States, with an estimated population of 72 million. 11 One interesting aspect of Millennial buying is that they shop sustainably. They shop for brands that produce items with natural ingredients and ethical production lines and sustainable goods in every sector, such as food, household cleaning products, linens, and clothes. 12
Generation Z , also known as Zoomers , (born between 1997 and 2012) are currently in their teens to early 20s, and they are just starting to have an economic impact on the consumer market. Although over 67 million strong, 13 many Zoomers are still in school and living with their parents, and their discretionary spending is limited.

Marketing in Practice

Marketing to the ages.

Knowing how to speak to your target market is critical. Knowing how to frame your message to a Baby Boomer versus a Gen Xer is what makes marketers successful. Want to know how to speak to each group? Check out these articles about marketing to different age demographics and generational marketing .

Learn from real-world examples of how age-agnostic marketing can work.

Have you ever seen a commercial or advertisement that pulls on your heartstrings because it gets you reminiscing? Nostalgia is an impactful tool in marketing because it gives a feeling of meaning and comfort. Check out this online blog to learn more about the impact of nostalgia in marketing.

Likewise, your life cycle stage has a major influence on your buying habits. Consider the different buying choices you would make as a single person who is renting an apartment in an urban area versus the choices you would make as a homeowner in the suburbs with children. It should be noted, though, that age and life cycle stage can often be poor predictors of buying behavior. For example, some 40-year-olds are just starting their families, while others are sending their kids off to college. Still other 40-year-olds are single (or single again). Some 70-year-olds may fit the stereotype of a retired person with a fixed income; others are still active or perhaps still working, with plenty of disposable income.

Your economic situation (income) is a huge influence on your buying behavior. Higher income typically means higher disposable income, and that disposable income gives consumers more opportunity to spend on high-end products. Conversely, lower-income and middle-income consumers spend most of their income on basic needs such as groceries and clothing.

Your occupation is also a significant factor in your buying behavior because you tend to purchase things that are appropriate to your profession. For instance, a blue-collar worker is less likely to buy professional attire like business suits, whereas attorneys, accountants, and other white-collar workers may favor suits or business casual work clothes. There are even companies that specialize in work clothes for certain types of workers, such as health care professionals who buy scrubs or construction workers who buy steel-toed boots.

Your lifestyle reflects your attitudes and values. What do you consider to be your lifestyle? Do you strive to live an active, healthy lifestyle? If so, your purchasing decisions may focus on healthier food alternatives instead of fast food. Do you consider yourself to be a soccer parent? You may (perhaps reluctantly) forgo that sports car for a minivan in order to transport your kids to youth sporting events or other activities.

Your personality and self-concept are also important factors influencing your buying behavior. Personality is the characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that make a person unique. It’s believed that personality arises from within the individual and remains fairly consistent throughout life. 14 Some examples of the many personality traits people might have include things like self-confidence, individualism, extroversion, introversion, aggression, or competitiveness. Your personality greatly influences what you buy as well as when and how you use or consume products and services.

Perhaps even more importantly, as consumers, people tend to buy not only products they need but also those products or services that they perceive as being consistent with their “self-concept.” In other words, they generally want the products they buy to match or blend in with who they think they are. 15

Psychological Factors That Influence Consumer Buying Behavior

Your buying choices are further influenced by several major psychological factors, including motivation, perception, learning, feelings, beliefs, and attitudes (refer to Figure 3.7 ).

Let’s first consider how motivation affects your buying behavior. Motivation is the process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviors. It’s the driving force behind your actions. One of the most widely known motivation theories is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (see Figure 3.8 ).

Abraham Maslow asserted that all individuals have five needs, arranged from the most basic lower-level deficiency needs to the highest-level growth needs. As Figure 3.8 shows, physiological needs are at the most basic level and include things like adequate food, water, and shelter. Think about how marketers may try to appeal to consumers based on physiological needs. For example, Snickers ran a very successful ad campaign based on the slogan “You’re not you when you’re hungry.”

The second level is safety and security, the need to be safe from physical and psychological harm. Once again, consider just a few successful marketing campaigns that have focused on safety—“You’re in Good Hands with Allstate ” and Lysol ’s “Practice Healthy Habits” campaign with its tagline “What It Takes to Protect.”

The third level is belonging, or social needs. This level includes things like the need for emotional attachments, friendship, love, or belonging to community or church groups.

Esteem, the fourth level, includes such needs as recognition from others, taking pride in your education or work, awards, and/or prestige.

The highest level is self-actualization, which involves self-development and seeking challenges. For example, Nike ’s “Find Your Greatness” campaign was intended to spark greatness in ordinary people, not just professional athletes.

Examples of Maslow’s Five Needs

Check out this Snickers' “You’re not you when you’re hungry” commercial, which appeals to basic human physiological needs.

This Lysol “What It Takes to Protect” commercial appeals to the human needs for safety and security.

Consider this public service announcement (PSA) from the Ad Council that is dedicated to fostering a more welcoming nation where everyone can belong. How does it appeal to the human need for community and belonging?

One awesome esteem level example to check out is this one from Dove . Dove launched a campaign to boost female self-esteem and to celebrate female beauty in all shapes and sizes. The company also created “confidence-boosting boards” on Pinterest. The boards include self-esteem activities so girls and their parents can share words of encouragement.

Check out one of Nike’s commercials from the “Find Your Greatness” campaign. How does it appeal to the human need for self-actualization?

Maslow asserted that people strive to satisfy their most basic needs before directing their behavior toward satisfying higher-level needs, so it stands to reason that consumer buying behavior would follow this model. For example, you’d first have to fulfill your needs for food and shelter before you might consider putting money away for retirement or purchasing a home security system.

Maslow and Marketing

Understanding Maslow’s hierarchy of needs will help you be an effective and impressive marketer. You’re going to see this model in many of your business courses, not just marketing, so take the time to learn about it. Check out this brief video that may help you understand how to use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in marketing. Learn about why Maslow’s hierarchy of needs matters.

Perception is the way in which people identify, organize, and interpret sensory information. It’s another variable in consumer buying behavior because the perceptions you have about a business or its products or services have a dramatic effect on your buying behavior. What makes perception even more complex is that consumers can form different perceptions of the same stimulus because of three perceptual processes: selective attention, selective distortion, and selective retention. Let’s take a closer look.

Every day, you’re bombarded with marketing messages from TV commercials, magazine and newspaper ads, billboards, and social media ads. As of 2021, it was estimated that the average person encounters between 6,000 and 10,000 ads every single day. 16 It stands to reason that you can’t possibly pay attention to all of the competing stimuli surrounding you, so you’ll pay attention to only those stimuli that you consider relevant to your wants and needs at the time and screen out the rest. That’s the process known as selective attention .

When Bombarding Backfires

Bombarding consumers with marketing messages can cause more harm than good. According to this article from Marketing Dive , bombarding people with ads would negatively impact a brand. This article from the Advertising Association shares data that indicates bombardment and intrusiveness negatively impact perceptions of advertising.

How can you combat the issue? Quantcast outlines ways to avoid ad bombardment.

It’s about Ability

Your personal brand will be a significant factor when it comes to finding a job. What does your personal brand say today? What is your marketing story? Is it what you want it to be? If not, what will you do to change it? The end-of-chapter content includes various ways to explore your personal brand to help you prepare for your job search.

How are you going to stand out among other candidates? What can you do with your résumé? According to Jason Shen’s TED Talk, you should highlight your abilities and not your experience. He speaks to potential and how you can make yourself more attractive to potential employers by telling a story in a compelling way.

According to the American Marketing Association (AMA) , you need to know yourself well. Self-knowledge will help you know the kind of work environment you perform best in and what kind of work you enjoy most. The AMA is a great place to learn how to stand out as a marketing job applicant , target companies, prepare your best résumé, and have a successful interview.

Check out these sources on how to stand out and ways you can beat the competition:

Freemanleonard : “How Marketers and Creatives Can Stand Out in Today’s Competitive Job Market”
Recruiter.com : “13 Tried-and-True Creative Tactics Candidates Have Used to Stand Out in Interviews”
Acadium : “Launch Your Digital Marketing Career: How to Stand Out as a Candidate”
Indeed : “8 Marketing Interview Questions to Expect”
Entrepreneur : “Building Your Brand Is How You Will Stand Out When Applying for a Job”
Smart Insights : “7 Tactics to Help You Stand Out as a Marketer and Get Better Jobs”
24 Seven : “10 Tips to Ace Your Next Marketing Job Interview”

If you want to go the extra mile in making yourself stand out, reach out to current marketers and ask them questions. You can find hundreds, even thousands, of current marketers on LinkedIn . Try targeting people from companies you’re interested in or would like to learn more about. Look for specific people who are doing jobs that interest you. Going to an interview armed with information is incredibly powerful and will speak volumes to your interviewer. Be sure to find a way to work your completed research into the interview conversation because it will speak to your drive, curiosity, and ambition—all traits every interviewer wants to hear about. This will also be another way you can stand out from others interviewing for the job. Questions you could ask current marketers in preparation for an interview include (but by no means are limited to):

What about you stood out in your interview process that made your current company hire you?
Can you tell me about examples of people you’ve interviewed and why they stood out to you?
How have candidates stood out when they spoke about their abilities in a job interview scenario?
What are your thoughts on candidates sharing a college project with you as a way to demonstrate abilities?
What advice do you have for me?

Be creative with your questions! Look online for other questions you could ask. Have fun!

Even the stimuli that people notice don’t always come across in the way in which the marketers intended. Selective distortion is the tendency of people to interpret information in a way that fits their preconceived notions. This was demonstrated years ago when PepsiCo launched its Pepsi Challenge blind taste test commercials. Participants were presented with two colas in unmarked plastic cups and asked to taste both colas and choose the one they liked better. Then the tester would lift a small screen to reveal the brand the participants preferred. In TV commercials that aired for years, Pepsi showed the stunned reactions of loyal Coca-Cola drinkers who had chosen Pepsi over Coke in the test. One grandmother in a commercial said, “I can’t believe it. I’ve never had a Pepsi in my life, but it must be better!” 17

People also tend to forget much of what they learn and to retain information that supports their preconceived attitudes and beliefs. That’s the power of selective retention , a bias by which you’re more likely to remember messages that are closely related to your interests, values, and beliefs rather than those that are contrary to those values and beliefs.

Beliefs, feelings, and attitudes also play an important role in consumer buying behavior. Beliefs are consumer perceptions of how a product or brand performs relative to different attributes. These beliefs are generally formed through personal experience, advertising, and conversations with others, and they play a vital role because they can be either positive or negative. You can even hold both positive and negative beliefs about the same thing. For example, you may believe that coffee is good for you because it helps you focus and stay alert, but you may also worry about the effect of coffee on your health and the way it stains your teeth. Human beliefs aren’t always accurate and can change according to the situation.

Consumer attitudes are a composite of a consumer’s beliefs, feelings, and behavioral intentions toward a product or service (see Figure 3.9 ).

We’ve already talked about beliefs, so let’s focus for a moment on affect, or feeling. Consumers often have certain feelings toward brands, products, or services. Sometimes these feelings are based on people’s beliefs, such as a vegetarian who can’t stand the thought of eating a hamburger, but you may also have feelings that are relatively independent of your beliefs. For example, someone who has strong environmentalist beliefs may object to clearing forests to make way for a housing development but may have positive feelings toward Christmas trees because they subconsciously associate these trees with the experience that they had at Christmas as a child.

The behavioral intention aspect of an attitude is what you as a consumer plan to do—buy the brand or not buy the brand. As with affect, this is sometimes a logical consequence of your beliefs but may sometimes reflect other circumstances. Consider a consumer who doesn’t particularly like a restaurant but will go there because it’s an after-class gathering spot with her friends. 18

Learning is still another important factor in consumer buying behavior. The fact is that consumer behavior is learned, and much of what you buy is based on your previous experiences with particular brands. This is commonly known as the Law of Effect , which asserts that, if an action is followed by a pleasant consequence, you’re likely to repeat it; if the action is followed by an unpleasant consequence, you’re less likely to repeat it. For example, let’s say you buy an Apple iPhone . If your experience with the iPhone is positive, you’ll probably be more inclined to buy another Apple product when you’re looking for a tablet or wearable. On the other hand, if you’ve had a not-so-positive experience with your iPhone, you’re likely to look at other brands when considering purchasing other devices.

Lessons in Psychology

Psychology is a big part of marketing. Insight into your customers’ thinking will allow you to create marketing messages and stories that better speak to their needs. Learning, the process where customers acquire information they can apply to future purchases, is a foundational concept in marketing. Learn about the various types of learning and how they can impact marketing strategies from this Forbes article .

Situational Factors That Impact Consumer Buying Behavior

Situational factors influencing consumers are external (refer to Figure 3.10 ). These factors play an important role in how consumers experience a product and how these consumers’ opinions are formed.

Environmental factors such as music, lighting, ambient noise, and even smells can either discourage or encourage a consumer’s purchase decision. For example, researchers conducted a study on the effect of lighting on consumer purchases in a grocery store. They lit half the store with traditional fluorescent lighting and the other half of the building with LED lighting. Researchers conducted the study over 21 weeks and discovered that consumers bought 25 percent more products on the LED-lit side of the store. 19

Spatial factors also play a role. The way a product is displayed may make it seem desirable, but a crowded store or a long line at the cash register can suddenly make that same product seem less desirable. Think about it: Have you ever seen a long line to check out at the cash register and put the product you intended to buy back on the shelf because it simply wasn’t worth it to waste your time standing in line?

The Marketing in Practice feature box shows how sound and smell can affect consumers.

Abercrombie & Fitch

As consumers, people usually don’t think twice about what a store smells or sounds like, the way it makes them feel or think, or what it makes them do. But Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) thinks about it a lot (see Figure 3.11 ).

The company has its own line of men’s fragrances called “Fierce,” which is sprayed liberally in stores to give off what the company describes as a “lifestyle . . . packed with confidence and a bold, masculine attitude.” A&F knows who it wants in its stores, and by associating its fragrance with its stores, it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy for its male clientele who, by wanting to smell like A&F, will be like the models and sales staff in the store.

A&F also plays loud club music throughout its stores, attracting young people who can withstand loud music longer, while older customers may run from it. It’s just another way that A&F is enabling its stores to maintain a more youthful clientele and a “fresher” image. 20

Watch this video on Abercrombie & Fitch’s brand transformation for further insight on how A&F has positioned its retail brand Hollister as a global iconic teen brand and modernized the A&F brand to focus on young millennial consumers.

The social situation of shopping is another situational factor. Did you know that you’re more likely to stop to look at certain products when you’re in the company of a friend as opposed to a parent? The social aspect can even alter the price you’re willing to pay. You might be more inclined to purchase a more expensive product when you’re with a colleague or potential partner than you would if you’re with a friend or spouse. 21

The goal of your shopping trip is yet another situational factor. If you go to a store to look for a birthday present for your mother, your purpose is totally different than if you’re casually shopping for a new pair of shoes. The reason for shopping dictates the kinds of products customers are willing to interact with at that time and may cause them to bypass certain products they would normally interact with on another shopping trip. This is even true at the grocery store. You’ll interact with products differently if you’re on your weekly shopping trip versus simply going into the store because you’re out of milk.

Much like the purpose of your shopping trip, timing also influences your consumer behavior. If you’re in a rush because it’s Christmas Eve and you haven’t bought a present for your best friend yet, you’ll interact with fewer products than if you have hours to shop. Even if two people are looking for the same type of product, the one in a rush will probably end up with the most accessible product, whereas the leisurely consumer has time to weigh the price and quality of offerings.

Finally, your mood influences your buying behavior. Someone who is feeling sad or stressed interacts differently with products than a happy, relaxed shopper. The same can be said for someone who’s fatigued versus someone who’s full of energy.

Situational Factors

There are many examples where companies use situational factors in their marketing approaches. Here are several online sites and specific articles:

Westin and the White Tea Signature Scent
The Aroma Trace : “Best Examples of Olfactory Marketing in Companies”
Sync Originals : “10 Brands That Made Music Part of Their Marketing DNA”
Omnify : “8 Simple Lighting Techniques That Boost Retail Sales”
Science News : “Does Background Noise Make Consumers Buy More Innovative Products?”
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science : “Sounds Like a Healthy Retail Atmosphere Strategy: Effects of Ambient Music and Background Noise on Food Sales”

Knowledge Check

It’s time to check your knowledge on the concepts presented in this section. Refer to the Answer Key at the end of the book for feedback.

Psychological factors
Social factors
Situational factors
Personal factors
Social class
Personality
Physiological
Safety/security
Self-esteem
cognitive dissonance
selective attention
selective retention
selective distortion
predispositions
behavioral intentions
preconceived notions
attributions

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Authors: Dr. Maria Gomez Albrecht, Dr. Mark Green, Linda Hoffman
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Book title: Principles of Marketing
Publication date: Jan 25, 2023
Location: Houston, Texas
Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/1-unit-introduction
Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/3-2-factors-that-influence-consumer-buying-behavior

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Understanding Consumer Behavior

Close up man hand hold mobile cell phone device while shopping online.

Consumer behavior involves the why, what, and how of consumer purchasing decisions. In 2023, Apple’s iPhone 14 Max Pro boasted 26.5 million units sold and landed at the top of Forbes’ list of Top 10 Selling Smartphones for the year. Why do people continue to choose Apple over other brands? 1 Ever since Apple’s “Think Different” campaign, the iPhone’s appeal has been the ‘cool’ factor—innovation, status, and a sleek design. 2 In the meantime, Apple’s competitor, Samsung, has become the most trusted brand among Millennials because it focuses on affordability and sustainability. 2

Top-selling brands, large and small, strive to understand why people choose their products and services over their competitors’. You can do the same by leveraging the right e-commerce platforms and analytics tools to learn about your customers’ buying behavior throughout your product lifecycle—from discovery to purchase to use. Whether you’re a local coffee shop or a global clothing brand, these valuable insights can help your marketing team craft winning strategies and marketing campaigns to increase sales and build customer loyalty. 3

This post explores consumer buying behavior, including the decision-making journey, cultural and social influences on consumer choices, and the role of ethics in today’s digital landscape.

The Consumer Decision-Making Process

As a marketer, the more you understand about consumer choices, the better you’re able to tailor marketing messages and tactics to match needs and preferences. Studies show that multiple factors play a role in the decision journey, including the customer’s lifestyle, social and cultural influences, and psychological factors as well as brand perception. 3,4

You might not be able to get into the minds of consumers during their purchasing journey, but a decision-making model, such as Engel-Kollat-Blackwell (EKB), give you the next best thing. 3 It offers a framework for understanding consumer needs and the factors influencing their decisions at key touch-points. As one example, access to an online review or a free gift promotion at the right time can convince those on the fence to go ahead and make a purchase.

To get a better return on your marketing efforts, identify ways to engage existing and potential customers at each of these five stages of the EKB model: 3

Problem recognition: A potential customer identifies a need or problem, often triggered by internal or external factors
Information search: The potential customer conducts online research, browsing websites, reading reviews, and seeking information from various digital sources
Evaluation of alternatives: The potential customer compares products or services based on digital content, reviews, and online feedback
Purchase decision: The customer completes the transaction, which is influenced by the information gathered during the previous stages
Post-purchase evaluation: Do customers love or hate the product? Customers can share product opinions through reviews, ratings, and social media

Cultural and Social Influences

Cultural elements include language, religion, beliefs, and values, while social factors include family and reference groups. Family, friends, and even strangers’ recommendations on social media can influence how individuals make buying decisions.

A marketing campaign that works for McDonald’s in the U.S. may not work so well in India and vice versa. If your company plans to open sites in Asia or Latin America, identify cultural and social factors and potential conflicts with your current marketing strategies. Then, find innovative ways to make your product relevant to local consumers.

When these brands expanded into new markets, they didn’t achieve global success overnight but learned from their missteps and successes.

McDonald’s in India

The company created menu options to appeal to the country’s vegetarian population. 4 The positive response to items like the McAloo Tikki burger, which is made with potatoes, peas, and Indian spices, shows the marketing strategy paid off. 5 The fast-food giant now boasts 300 restaurants in 52 cities across India. 5

Coca-Cola in China

The company’s efforts to name the soft drink with a Chinese phrase that phonetically sounded like “Coca-Cola” bombed because the phrase they used translated to “Bite the wax tadpole.” 6 Their “Share a Coke” campaign landed much better with the target market, as it evoked strong cultural associations with Chinese values of happiness, luck, and prosperity. 4

Nike in Brazil

The brand’s 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup campaign aligned with the country’s passion for soccer. 6 One ad featured player Ary Borges soaring over a conference table that’s surrounded by bewildered men in suits. 7 By playfully celebrating breaking barriers, a diverse sports culture, and the sheer joy of the game, Nike’s approach resonated strongly with Brazilian values. 7

Psychological Factors in Consumer Behavior

The psychological aspects of consumer behavior include attitudes, perception, motivations, and learning and can be powerful drivers of purchasing decisions. Psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs sheds light on how some of these factors influence our decisions. At the top of this hierarchy are basic needs, such as food, shelter, and rest. 3 But we also have psychological needs, such as belonging and love, that we seek to fulfill through friendships, romantic relationships, and even community connections. 3

For hungry and busy potential buyers, the immediate need might be food, so their buying decision may be heavily influenced by proximity or fast delivery. For others, it could be replacing worn-out athletic shoes to train for a marathon; these customers are more concerned with brand quality.

As a marketer, it’s important to keep these factors in mind when designing campaigns: 8

Motivation: Align marketing with Maslow’s hierarchy for targeted campaigns catering to specific consumer needs
Learning: Offer learning opportunities through campaigns for informed consumer choices; make case studies and reviews from other customers accessible on your product pages
Reinforcement: Ensure that customer experiences align with expectations to foster brand loyalty
Socialization: Understand socialization patterns to connect with consumers organically and design campaigns to create a sense of belonging

Personal Factors and Consumer Behavior

Personal demographic factors—such as age, lifestyle, education, and income—affect purchasing decisions and preferences. 9 Individuals with purchasing power might favor luxury brands, ranging from fine wines to watches, while a college student will be more likely to prioritize budget-friendly brands. In addition, consumers with an active lifestyle may gravitate toward fitness and adventure brands, while those focused on sustainability may opt for eco-friendly products and services. Know your audience, then create targeted campaigns based on their personal preferences; these efforts can draw in new customers and build brand loyalty. 9

Application of Consumer Behavior Insights

Once consumers have purchased your products, it’s time to learn more about their interaction with the brand. Use surveys, social listening, market research, and analytics to collect data about your customers' needs and wants. Apply these insights to align your marketing strategies with customer expectations for better results. 10 This data could also lead your company to launch innovative products or new features without market testing. 10

Ethical and Sustainable Consumer Behavior

In a more socially conscious world, ethics plays a bigger role in consumer decisions, especially among millennials who want to engage with brands that care about people and the planet. According to a recent Nielsen report, 73% of consumers in this group are willing to pay more for sustainable products. 11 That’s why it is more important than ever for companies to practice what they preach.

Practicing good ethics means aligning your company’s policies with its values. When that happens, you emerge as a leader and get to shape cultural conversations on topics such as sustainability, in the way that Patagonia and TOMS shoe brands have done. 11,12 In contrast, bad ethics could cause serious harm to your company’s reputation, leading to loss of customers and even legal action.

To help your company build and maintain consumer trust and improve customer retention, it’s important to identify gaps in your ethical brand strategy before your customers do. Use this checklist as a guide to developing a stronger ethical brand: 13

Have you outlined a clear ethical purpose? Is that purpose linked to specific social and environmental causes?
Do your supply chains and production methods meet sustainability standards?
Have you committed to transparent and honest marketing practices?
Are you supporting charities and community groups through volunteering?
Has your company established policies on fair pay, diversity and inclusion, and positive company culture?

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Retrieved on January 19, 2024, from forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2023/08/29/top-10-selling-smartphones-all-from-2-companies-apple-and-samsung/?sh=4066538c57d1
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Blog Customer Experience

The Psychology of Consumer Buying Behavior: Understanding How and Why People Buy

Kate williams.

1 March 2024

21 min read

Table Of Contents

Consumer Buying Behavior: Definition and Significance

The evolution of consumer buying behavior research, factors affecting consumer behavior.

The Consumer Decision-Making Process

Types of Buying Decisions

The influence of marketing and advertising on consumer behavior, the impact of technology on consumer behavior, understanding consumer behavior in different cultures, consumer behavior research methods, ethical considerations in consumer behavior, wrapping up.

As a business owner or marketer, it’s essential to understand the psychology behind consumer buying behavior. By understanding how and why people make purchasing decisions, you can tailor your marketing strategies and improve your chances of success.

In this blog post, we’ll:

Understand the definition and significance of consumer buying behavior
Chart the evolution of consumer buying behavior research
Delve into the factors that influence consumer buying behavior
Explore the consumer decision-making process
The types of buying decisions
The influence of marketing and advertising
The impact of technology
Understanding consumer behavior in different cultures
Consumer behavior research methods
Ethical considerations in consumer behavior

Consumer buying behavior studies how and why individuals purchase goods or services. Understanding consumer behavior is crucial for businesses to create effective marketing strategies that appeal to potential customers and lead to increased sales.

Consumer behavior is influenced by a range of factors, including psychological, cultural, social, and economic. These factors vary greatly depending on the individual, background, and circumstances. Also, you can divide these consumers based on their behavior to further personalize every customer touchpoint, known as behavioral segmentation .

In this guide, we will explore the psychology of consumer buying behavior in depth, including the different models of consumer behavior and how they can be applied to create effective marketing strategies.

The study of consumer buying behavior has a rich history that spans over a century. The first research on the topic was conducted by John Dewey in the early 1900s, who examined how advertising affects consumer behavior. Since then, consumer buying behavior research has expanded significantly, with scholars exploring a range of factors that influence consumer behavior.

In the 1950s, researchers began exploring the psychological factors that affect consumers, including motivation, perception, and attitudes.

This led to the development of several influential theories, including Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which suggests that consumers are motivated by a range of needs, from basic physiological needs to higher-level needs like self-actualization, to buy products.

In the 1960s and 1970s, researchers began to explore the impact of social factors on consumer behavior, including the role of reference groups and social class.

This period also saw the development of several models of the consumer decision-making process, including the Engel-Kollat-Blackwell (EKB) and the Howard-Sheth models.

In the 1980s and 1990s, researchers began to explore the impact of situational factors on consumer behavior, including the role of time and location in shaping purchase decisions.

This period also saw the development of several models of consumer behavior that integrated the various factors that influence consumer decision-making.

In the 21st century, consumer buying behavior research has continued to evolve, with researchers exploring the impact of technology on consumer behavior, including the rise of e-commerce and social media, and mobile devices on the shopping experience.

Researchers have also continued to explore the impact of cultural factors on consumer behavior, including the role of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory in shaping cross-cultural consumer behavior.

Overall, the evolution of consumer buying behavior research has been characterized by a growing understanding of the complex factors that influence consumer behavior and the development of new research methods and theories to understand better and explain consumer decision-making.

Personal Factors

Personal factors play a crucial role in influencing the different types of buyers. These factors include age, income, gender, lifestyle, personality, etc.

Age: Different age groups have different needs and preferences. Younger consumers may prioritize the latest technology and fashion trends, while older consumers may value practicality and durability.
Income: Higher-income consumers may have more purchasing power and be willing to pay more for high-quality products and services. On the other hand, consumers with lower incomes may prioritize affordability and may be more price-sensitive.
Gender: Men and women may have different preferences regarding products and services. For example, men may be more interested in sports and technology, while women may be more interested in beauty and fashion.
Lifestyle: A consumer’s lifestyle can affect their complex buying behavior. For example, someone who lives an active lifestyle may be more interested in fitness products and services. In contrast, someone who prioritizes relaxation may be more interested in spa treatments and luxury vacations.
Personality: Consumer personality traits can also affect their buying habits. For example, extroverted people may be more interested in social activities and events, while introverted may be more interested in solitary activities like reading and watching movies.

These personal factors can influence a consumer’s decision-making and buying behavior. As a result, businesses should consider these factors when developing marketing strategies and creating products and services that appeal to their target audience.

Psychological Factors

Psychological factors are crucial in shaping consumer behavior. These factors are mainly internal and subjective, involving how consumers perceive, interpret, and process information about a consumer purchase.

Key psychological factors affecting consumer behavior include motivation, perception, learning, beliefs, and attitudes.

Motivation refers to the internal drive or desire that prompts consumers to take action, such as buying a product. Various factors, including personal needs, desires, and goals, can influence motivation.
For example, a consumer motivated by the need for security may be more likely to purchase insurance or invest in a secure financial product.
Perception refers to how consumers interpret and make sense of information about a product or service. Various factors can influence perception, including the consumer’s past experiences, expectations, and cultural background.
For example, a consumer who has had a positive experience with a particular brand may have a more favorable perception of that brand than a consumer who has not had any experience with the brand.
Learning refers to how consumers acquire new knowledge, skills, or attitudes about a product or service.
Learning can occur through various channels, including personal experience, observation, and communication. For example, a consumer who has had a positive experience with a particular product may be more likely to purchase it again.
Beliefs refer to consumers’ cognitive frameworks or assumptions about a product or service. Beliefs can be based on personal experience, cultural values, or social influence. For example, consumers who believe organic products are healthier may be more likely to purchase organic foods.
Attitudes refer to the consumer’s overall evaluation or perception of a product or service. Attitudes can be positive, negative, or neutral and can be influenced by various factors, including personal experience, social influence, and marketing messages.

For example, a consumer with a positive attitude towards a brand may be likelier to recommend it to others or purchase from it again.

Understanding these psychological factors and their impact on consumer behavior can help businesses develop effective marketing strategies that resonate with their target audience. By appealing to consumers’ motivations, perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes, businesses can build stronger connections with their customers and drive more sales.

Social Factors

Social factors significantly shape consumer behavior. Here are some key social factors that influence buying decisions:

Culture refers to shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that define a group or society. Culture shapes consumer behavior by influencing what people buy, how they buy it, and why they buy it. For example, in some cultures, it is customary to haggle over prices, while in others, fixed prices are the norm.

Family members can significantly influence each other’s buying decisions. Children often influence what their parents buy, and spouses often make joint purchase decisions. Family roles and dynamics, such as who has the final say in purchasing decisions, also play a role.

Reference groups: A reference group is a group of people that an individual looks to for guidance on social norms, values, and behaviors. Reference groups can include family members, friends, coworkers, or celebrities. The opinions and actions of these groups can influence a person’s buying decisions.

Social class:

Social class refers to people with similar income levels, education, occupation, and lifestyle. Social class can influence consumer behavior by shaping what products people buy, where they shop, and how they make purchase decisions.

Understanding these social factors can help businesses develop marketing strategies that resonate with their target audience. For example, a business that caters to a high-income social class may want to market its products as exclusive or high-end, while a business targeting a younger demographic may want to focus on social media and influencer marketing.

Situational Factors

Situational factors refer to external conditions that affect consumer behavior, including the purchase timing, location, and the buying occasion. These factors can influence a consumer’s purchase decision and include the following :

Time is a situational factor that can impact consumer behavior. Time-related situational factors include the time of day, day of the week, and time of year. For example, consumers may be more likely to purchase ice cream during the summer months or holiday-themed items during the corresponding holiday season.

The purchase location can also influence consumer behavior. For instance, consumers may be more likely to purchase luxury items in upscale department stores or shopping centers.

Buying Occasion:

Buying occasions can also impact consumer behavior. A buying occasion could be a special event or holiday, such as Valentine’s Day or a wedding, that may trigger a purchase.

Situational factors can significantly impact consumer behavior and create opportunities for businesses to tailor their marketing strategies to specific situations or occasions. For example, a retailer may offer holiday-themed promotions or discounts during the Christmas season to capitalize on the increase in consumer spending.

The Five Stages of the Consumer Decision-Making Process: An Overview

The consumer decision-making process is a five-stage process consumers go through before purchasing. The first stage is problem recognition, where consumers identify their needs or want. The second stage is information search, where consumers gather information to make informed decisions. The third stage is the evaluation of alternatives, where consumers weigh the pros and cons of different options. The fourth stage is the purchase decision, where consumers decide to buy. The fifth and final stage is post-purchase evaluation, where consumers assess their satisfaction with the purchase. Understanding these stages is essential for businesses to tailor their marketing strategies and meet consumers’ needs and wants.

Problem Recognition:

The first stage in consumer decision-making is problem recognition, where consumers become aware of a need or want they want to fulfill. These needs or want can be triggered by internal factors, such as hunger or thirst, or external factors, such as advertising or a friend’s recommendation. Once consumers recognize a need or want, they begin seeking information to fulfill that need or want.

Information Search:

Once the consumer has recognized a problem or need, the next step in the decision-making process is to gather information. Consumers seek information from various sources, including personal sources such as family and friends, commercial sources such as advertisements and salespeople, and public sources such as online reviews and ratings.

The amount and type of information consumers gather can vary depending on the complexity and cost of the product or service they are considering. For example, a consumer may spend more time researching a high-ticket item like a car or a house while making a quick decision for a low-ticket item like a pack of gum.

During this stage, consumers may also create a list of criteria that they will use to evaluate different options. These criteria could include price, quality, brand reputation, features, and other factors important to the consumer.

Businesses must understand where consumers search for information and what information they seek. By providing accurate and helpful information through various channels such as websites, social media, and customer service, businesses can influence decision-making and increase the likelihood of purchasing.

Evaluation of Alternatives:

Consumers consider the options available during the evaluation stage based on their information search. They evaluate each option and compare them against each other to determine which option will best meet their needs and preferences. Consumers use different criteria to evaluate products, such as price, quality, features, brand reputation, and availability. They may also seek recommendations from others or consult reviews and ratings to gather more information. Ultimately, consumers aim to select the option that offers them the most value and benefits.

Purchase Decision:

Consumers purchase the product or service after evaluating the alternatives. At this stage, consumers may still experience doubts or uncertainty, so businesses can take steps to reduce the risk and reassure consumers. This includes offering warranties, money-back guarantees, and excellent customer service.

Besides reducing risk, businesses can use marketing tactics to encourage purchase decisions, such as limited-time offers, discounts, and promotions. Consumers may also consider convenience, availability, and delivery options when deciding.

Once the decision is made, consumers move on to the final stage of the decision-making process, post-purchase evaluation.

Post-Purchase Evaluation:

After purchasing a product, consumers will evaluate their level of satisfaction with the purchase. This evaluation can be positive or negative, influencing their future purchase behavior. Customers are more likely to repurchase the product or even recommend it to others if they are satisfied. On the other hand, if the customer is dissatisfied, they are less likely to repurchase the product. They may even share their negative experience with others, harming the company’s reputation.

Post-purchase evaluation can also include cognitive dissonance, discomfort or doubt arising after purchasing. Consumers may question whether they made the right choice or if they should have chosen a different product or brand. Companies can reduce cognitive dissonance by providing reassurance and support after purchasing, such as follow-up communication, warranties, and return policies.

Habitual Buying Behavior:

Habitual Buying Behavior is a buying decision where consumers make purchases without much thought or effort. This is common when consumers buy low-cost, frequently purchased items like groceries or personal care products. Habitual buying behavior is driven by experience, brand loyalty, and convenience. Consumers in this category may not actively seek information or evaluate alternatives before purchasing. Instead, they rely on habit and convenience to guide their decision-making.

Limited Decision-Making:

Limited decision-making occurs when consumers already have some prior knowledge of the product or service but still need to gather more information to make an informed decision. In this stage, consumers consider a few alternatives before purchasing. They may rely on personal experience, recommendations from friends and family, or online reviews to narrow their choices. This type of decision-making is common for products or services that are moderately important and require some research but are not considered high-risk purchases. Examples include buying a new smartphone, choosing a restaurant for dinner, or selecting a new brand of laundry detergent.

Extensive Decision-Making:

Extensive decision-making occurs when a consumer faces a high level of risk or investment in a product or service. The consumer will devote significant time and effort to researching and evaluating multiple options. They may seek information from multiple sources, such as online reviews, recommendations from friends or family, and expert opinions. The decision-making process may take several days or even weeks, and the consumer will carefully weigh the pros and cons of each option before making a final decision. Examples of products or services that may require extensive decision-making include buying a house or a car or choosing a university to attend.

Impulse Buying:

Impulse buying refers to making purchases on a whim without prior planning or decision-making. Consumers engage in this type of buying behavior due to various reasons, such as a sudden desire or need for a product, emotional state, or attractive sales promotions. Impulse buying is often associated with low-priced products or readily available services, such as snacks, magazines, or cosmetics. However, it can also occur with high-priced items like electronics or luxury goods. Retailers often use various marketing techniques, such as product placement or in-store displays, to encourage impulse buying and increase sales.

Advertising and Persuasion:

Advertising significantly shapes consumer behavior. Businesses use this powerful tool to influence consumer preferences and promote their products or services.

Advertising and other marketing forms use various strategies to persuade consumers to make purchases, including emotional appeals, fear appeals, humor, and celebrity endorsements.

One of the most critical aspects of advertising is creating a solid brand identity. A brand represents the personality and values of a company, and it helps consumers identify with a particular product or service.

Effective branding and advertising can create a sense of trust and loyalty in consumers, increasing sales and revenue for the company.

Advertisements also shape consumer attitudes and perceptions about products and services.

By highlighting the benefits and features of a particular product, advertising can create a positive perception in the minds of consumers. This can lead to increased demand for the product and a competitive advantage over other brands.

Additionally, advertising can create a sense of urgency or FOMO (fear of missing out) in consumers, encouraging them to purchase quickly. This is often done through limited-time offers, sales, or discounts. By creating a sense of urgency, advertising can help drive sales and increase revenue.

Advertising and marketing play a significant role in shaping consumer behavior. Businesses can influence consumer decision-making and drive sales by creating strong brand identities, shaping consumer attitudes and perceptions, and creating a sense of urgency.

The Role of Social Media:

Social media has become a powerful tool in shaping consumer behavior. With the rise of social media platforms, businesses have gained new opportunities to connect with their customers and potential customers.

Social media platforms allow businesses to target specific audiences with personalized messages, making reaching their target market easier. For example, a business selling fitness equipment can target people interested in fitness and health-related topics on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Include TikTok likes in your list to reach out to audiences. Increase your TikTok follower count and request them to share your content on their profiles.

Social media also allows customers to share their experiences with products and services, whether positive or negative. These reviews and comments can influence the purchasing decisions of others considering the same product or service.

In addition, social media influencers have become a popular way for businesses to promote their products. Influencers are people who have a large following on social media and can impact the opinions and behaviors of their followers. Businesses can reach a wider audience and potentially increase sales by partnering with influencers.

Overall, social media significantly impacts consumer behavior, and businesses should use it to connect with their customers and promote their products or services.

Branding and Brand Loyalty:

Branding is essential to a business marketing strategy. The brand represents the company’s identity and helps create a loyal customer base. A strong brand can influence consumer behavior in many ways, including creating brand loyalty.

Brand loyalty is when customers repeatedly purchase products from a particular brand due to their positive experiences with the brand. Brand loyalty results from consistently delivering quality products or services, excellent customer service, and positive customer experiences.

Effective branding can create a unique identity for a business, differentiate it from its competitors, and create a strong emotional connection with customers. Businesses can achieve this by developing a brand that aligns with their target audience’s values, needs, and interests. This emotional connection leads to brand loyalty, where customers become committed to the brand and often choose its products over its competitors.

Brand loyalty can also be influenced by brand extensions, where a company expands its product line to include related products. This strategy can reinforce brand loyalty by offering customers more choices within the brand they already trust.

Branding plays a crucial role in creating and maintaining a loyal customer base. By developing a strong brand that resonates with customers, businesses can influence consumer behavior and create lasting relationships with their customers.

The Power of Endorsements and Influencers:

Celebrity endorsements and influencer marketing are powerful tools businesses use to persuade consumers to buy their products or services. When a celebrity or influencer endorses a product, it can greatly influence consumer behavior.

Celebrities and influencers often have a large following on social media, and their fans tend to trust and admire them. Endorsing a product can create a sense of credibility and trust in the product or service, leading followers to consider buying it.

Influencers also use their platforms to create engaging content that showcases the product or service in a relatable and appealing way. This content can range from product reviews to tutorials, influencing consumer behavior and leading to more purchases.

In addition to social media, celebrities and influencers are often featured in traditional advertising campaigns, such as print ads or television commercials. This exposure can also influence consumer behavior and create a sense of trust and credibility in the brand.

Celebrity endorsements and influencer marketing can be effective strategies for businesses to increase brand awareness, build consumer trust, and drive sales.

Online shopping trends:

The rise of e-commerce has revolutionized how consumers shop and have significantly impacted consumer behavior. Online shopping has made it easier and more convenient for consumers to browse and purchase products anywhere and anytime. This has led to several changes in consumer behavior, including

Increased price sensitivity: With easy access to online shopping, consumers can quickly compare prices from multiple retailers and choose the most cost-effective option. As a result, many consumers have become more price-sensitive and are more likely to search for the best deals before purchasing.

Greater product variety:

E-commerce platforms offer a wide range of products, from niche items to popular brands, which has led to greater product variety and selection for consumers.

Convenience and speed:

Online shopping allows consumers to shop anytime and from any location, eliminating the need to visit a store physically. Additionally, many e-commerce platforms offer fast and convenient delivery options, making it easy for consumers to receive their purchases quickly.

Increased trust in online reviews:

Many consumers rely on reviews and ratings to make informed purchase decisions. This has led to a greater emphasis on transparency and authenticity in product reviews and has given rise to the importance of influencer marketing and user-generated content.

Mobile Commerce:

Mobile commerce, or m-commerce, has revolutionized how consumers purchase. With the rise of smartphones and mobile apps, consumers can now shop anywhere and anytime. This has led to a significant shift in consumer behavior, as more and more people prefer to shop using their mobile devices.

One of the main benefits of m-commerce is convenience. Consumers no longer have to visit physical stores to purchase; they can use their mobile devices to order products online. This has made shopping more accessible and efficient for consumers and has contributed to the growth of e-commerce.

Another critical aspect of m-commerce is mobile payments. Many consumers now use mobile payment services such as Apple Pay and Google Wallet to make purchases, eliminating the need for cash or credit cards. This has made the checkout process faster and more streamlined, increasing online transactions’ security.

Mobile devices have also enabled retailers to provide personalized shopping experiences for their customers. Using data analytics and location-based technology, retailers can send targeted promotions and offers to consumers based on their preferences and location. This has helped to increase customer engagement and loyalty.

Overall, the rise of e-commerce has significantly impacted consumer behavior and fundamentally changed the way we shop. As technology evolves, m-commerce will likely play an increasingly important role in retail.

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR):

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) have revolutionized the shopping experience by enabling consumers to visualize products more effectively. AR allows customers to view products in their real-world surroundings through their mobile devices. At the same time, VR offers a more simulated experience, allowing customers to interact virtually with products and environments.

These technologies can increase customer engagement, reduce product returns, and provide a more personalized shopping experience. They also provide retailers with valuable data on customer behavior and preferences. As AR and VR continue to advance, they are expected to significantly impact the future of consumer behavior and the retail industry.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Personalization:

Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly prevalent in the retail industry, with many companies leveraging it to provide a personalized shopping experience for consumers. AI can make personalized product recommendations and create customized marketing messages tailored to each consumer by analyzing past purchase history, browsing behavior, and demographic information. This level of personalization can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty and drive sales for retailers.

AI is also being used to improve the efficiency of online shopping, with features such as chatbots and virtual assistants helping customers navigate the buying process and answer their questions.

Cross-Cultural Consumer Behavior:

Cross-Cultural Consumer Behavior studies how culture influences consumer behavior across cultures and societies. Culture significantly shapes people’s values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors towards products and services. As such, companies operating in multiple countries or with a diverse customer base must consider the cultural differences of their target audience and adapt their marketing strategies accordingly.

For example, in some cultures, bargaining is an essential part of the purchasing process, while it is considered inappropriate in others. Similarly, the concept of time varies among cultures, with some cultures placing a high value on punctuality while others prioritize flexibility and social relationships.

Moreover, cultural differences can also impact the interpretation and perception of marketing messages, leading to potential misunderstandings or offensive content. Therefore, companies need to conduct thorough research on their target audience’s cultural norms and values to create effective and culturally sensitive marketing campaigns.

Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory:

Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory is a framework for understanding how culture influences behavior. Developed by social psychologist Geert Hofstede, the theory identifies six cultural dimensions that can help explain differences in consumer behavior across different cultures:

Power Distance: This dimension refers to the degree to which people in a culture accept and expect power to be distributed unequally. In cultures with high power distance, there is a strong hierarchy; people in positions of authority are respected, and deference is expected. There is a more egalitarian approach in cultures with low power distance; people expect to be treated fairly regardless of their position.

Individualism vs. Collectivism: This dimension describes how people in a culture prioritize individual vs. group needs. In individualistic cultures, people tend to be more independent and prioritize personal goals and achievements. In collectivistic cultures, people tend to value the needs and goals of the group or community over individual desires.

Masculinity vs. Femininity: This dimension refers to the degree to which a culture values stereotypically masculine or feminine traits. Cultures that score high on masculinity tend to value competition, assertiveness, and success. Cultures that score high on femininity value cooperation, caring for others, and quality of life.

Uncertainty Avoidance: This dimension describes how a culture is comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. People prefer structure, rules, and predictability in cultures with high uncertainty avoidance. In cultures with low uncertainty avoidance, people tend to be more open to change and uncertainty.

Long-term vs. Short-term Orientation: This dimension describes the degree to which a culture values long-term vs. short-term thinking and planning. In cultures with a long-term orientation, people prioritize values such as perseverance, thrift, and respect for tradition. People tend to value immediate rewards and results in cultures with a short-term orientation.

Indulgence vs. Restraint: This dimension refers to the degree to which a culture values indulgence and pleasure-seeking vs. restraint and self-control. Cultures that score high on indulgence tend to prioritize enjoyment and fun, while cultures that score high on restraint value self-discipline and responsibility.

Understanding these cultural dimensions can help businesses tailor their marketing and advertising strategies to better resonate with consumers in different cultures.

Localizing Marketing Campaigns:

Localizing marketing campaigns refer to adapting marketing strategies and messages to specific cultures and markets. This involves considering cultural norms, values, and beliefs to create marketing messages that resonate with the local audience.

Brands that successfully localize their marketing campaigns can build stronger connections with consumers, increase brand awareness, and drive sales.

Brands can localize their marketing efforts by translating content into local languages, using local celebrities or influencers in advertising, and incorporating local customs and traditions into campaigns.

However, it’s important to note that localization is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Each market and culture is unique, and brands must conduct thorough research and analysis to create effective localized campaigns.

Qualitative Research Methods:

Qualitative Research Methods: Focus Groups, Interviews, and Observational Research

Qualitative research methods collect non-numerical data to gain insights into consumer behavior. These methods are used to understand consumer attitudes, opinions, and beliefs.

Focus Groups:

Focus groups are small group discussions led by a moderator. Participants are chosen based on their demographics or buying behavior and are asked questions about their attitudes toward products, brands, or marketing messages. Focus groups provide rich qualitative data, allowing marketers to understand the motivations behind consumer behavior better.

Interviews:

Interviews are one-on-one conversations between a researcher and a consumer. Like focus groups, interviews can provide deep insights into consumer attitudes and behaviors. Interviews can be conducted in person, over the phone, or through video conferencing.

Observational Research:

Observational research involves observing consumers in their natural environment without intervening. This method is useful for understanding how consumers behave in real-life situations rather than how they say they behave in a survey or focus group. Observational research can be conducted in person or through video recordings.

Qualitative research methods can provide valuable insights into consumer behavior, but they have limitations. These methods are time-consuming and expensive, and the results may not be generalizable to the broader population. Therefore, quantitative research methods are often necessary to confirm qualitative research findings.

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Quantitative Research Methods:

Quantitative research methods gather numerical data and measure consumer behavior on a large scale. Surveys and experiments are two commonly used quantitative research methods in consumer behavior research.

Surveys involve collecting data from a large sample size using standardized questionnaires. Surveys can be conducted through various methods such as phone calls, mail, or online. Surveys can help researchers gather data on consumer preferences, behavior, and attitudes toward products or services.

Experiments involve manipulating one or more variables to measure the impact on consumer behavior. These experiments can be conducted in a controlled environment or real-life situations. For example, a company may test different pricing strategies in certain stores to see how it impacts consumer behavior.

Qualitative and quantitative research methods are essential in understanding consumer behavior and developing effective marketing strategies.

Observational Research:

Observational research involves observing and analyzing consumer behavior in a natural or controlled environment.

This method can gain insights into how consumers interact with products, make purchase decisions, and behave in different situations. Observational research can be conducted in various settings, such as stores, online, or in people’s homes.

Observational research is particularly useful in situations where consumers may not be able to articulate their behavior or attitudes or when they may be influenced by social desirability bias in their responses. By observing consumers in a natural or controlled environment, researchers can gather more objective data on their behavior and make more accurate predictions about their future actions. However, it can be difficult to draw definitive conclusions from observational research alone, as it may not provide insights into the underlying reasons for consumer behavior.

Neuromarketing:

Neuromarketing is a relatively new field that seeks to understand how consumers’ brains respond to marketing stimuli. It combines neuroscience with marketing research to identify what consumers truly want and how they respond to marketing messages.

Using techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), and eye-tracking, neuromarketing can measure consumers’ subconscious reactions to marketing stimuli, including ads, product packaging, and even store layout. This allows companies to create more effective marketing campaigns and improve customer experience.

While there is still some controversy around the ethics of using neuromarketing to influence consumer behavior, it is becoming increasingly popular among companies looking to gain a deeper understanding of their customers and stay ahead of the competition.

Marketing Ethics:

Ethical considerations are crucial when marketing and advertising to consumers. Unethical marketing practices can negatively affect both the brand and the consumer.

Some ethical considerations businesses should consider:

Marketers should be honest in advertising and not make false claims about their products or services. Misleading advertisements can harm the consumer and damage the brand’s reputation.

Transparency:

Marketers should be transparent about their products or services, including their features, benefits, and limitations. This helps consumers make informed decisions and builds trust with the brand.

Marketers should respect consumers’ privacy and not use their personal information without their consent. This includes not sharing or selling consumer data to third parties.

Social Responsibility:

Marketers should consider the impact of their advertising on society and ensure that their messages do not promote harmful behaviors or stereotypes.

Sustainability:

Marketers should consider the environmental impact of their products or services and promote sustainable practices.

Marketers should treat all consumers fairly and not discriminate based on race, gender, or socioeconomic status.

Regulation:

Marketers should comply with all applicable laws and regulations related to advertising and marketing.

By incorporating these ethical considerations into their marketing practices, businesses can protect the consumer, enhance their brand reputation, and build a loyal customer base.

Deceptive Advertising:

Deceptive advertising is intentionally or unintentionally misleading, false, or deceptive advertising. This is a serious ethical issue as it can harm consumers and damage a company’s reputation. To avoid deceptive advertising, companies should ensure their claims are truthful, accurate, and not likely to mislead consumers.

Here are some ways to avoid deceptive advertising:

Be truthful:

Advertisements should not make false claims or exaggerate a product’s or service’s benefits.

Disclose important information:

Companies should provide accurate information about their products or services, including risks or limitations.

Use clear and understandable language:

Advertisements should use language that is easy for consumers to understand, avoiding complex or technical terms.

Avoid stereotypes and discrimination:

Advertisements should not use stereotypes or discriminatory language that may offend or alienate certain groups.

Respect consumer privacy:

Companies should respect consumers’ privacy by obtaining consent before using their personal information for marketing purposes.

Comply with regulations:

Companies should comply with advertising regulations and laws related to false advertising, unfair competition, and privacy.

By following these ethical principles, companies can build a reputation for honesty and integrity, leading to greater consumer trust and loyalty.

The Dark Side of Consumer Behavior:

Consumer behavior can negatively affect individuals and society through addiction, materialism, and environmental harm. To mitigate these adverse effects, companies and policymakers can take several steps:

Promote responsible consumption: Encourage consumers to make responsible choices and sustainably use products and services.

Promote education:

Educate consumers about the impacts of their choices and behaviors and how they can make more informed and responsible decisions.

Regulate marketing practices:

Governments can regulate marketing practices to prevent deceptive or harmful advertising and ensure that companies are transparent about their products and services’ environmental and social impacts.

Encourage ethical practices:

Companies should prioritize ethical practices and transparency in their operations, including supply chains, environmental impact, and labor practices.

Encourage conscious capitalism:

Businesses can embrace conscious capitalism, prioritizing business decisions’ social and environmental impacts alongside financial gains.

By taking these steps, companies and policymakers can help mitigate the adverse effects of consumer behavior and promote a more responsible and sustainable approach to consumption.

Consumer behavior studies how and why consumers make purchasing decisions.

Factors that affect consumer behavior include personal, psychological, social, and situational factors.

The consumer decision-making process includes problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, and post-purchase evaluation.

Types of buying decisions include habitual buying behavior, limited decision-making, extensive decision-making, and impulse buying.

Marketing and advertising, technology, and culture all influence consumer behavior.

Research methods for studying consumer behavior include qualitative and quantitative methods and neuromarketing.

Ethical considerations in consumer behavior include avoiding deceptive advertising and mitigating negative effects.

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3.2: Factors That Influence Consumer Buying Behavior
Personal Factors That Impact Consumer Buying Behavior. Personal factors, such as your occupation, age and life cycle stage, economic situation, lifestyle, and personality and self-concept also play a major role in your buying behavior (refer to Figure 3.6). Let's examine each of these in more detail.
Factors Affecting Consumer Behavior
Internal factors that influence consumer behavior include motivation, perception, learning, feelings, personal preferences, and thinking. These factors are also referred to as personal factors. A consumer's motivation to purchase a certain product or service mainly depends on an urge to fulfill a certain desire or attain a certain goal.
Understanding Consumer Behavior
Understanding consumer behavior is one of the critical elements in the success of a business. Consumers play a significant role in any economic model in determining products that are in demand. According to BBC, since the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer behavior has significantly changed (Latham, 2021). We will write a custom essay on your topic.
3.1 Factors That Influence Consumers' Buying Behavior
Key Takeaway. Situational influences are temporary conditions that affect how buyers behave. They include physical factors such as a store's buying locations, layout, music, lighting, and even scent. Companies try to make the physical factors in which consumers shop as favorable as possible.
3.1 Understanding Consumer Markets and Buying Behavior
Buying behavior is not influenced solely by the external environment. It's also determined by your level of involvement in a purchase and the amount of risk involved in the purchase. There are four types of consumer buying behavior, as shown in Figure 3.3. Complex buying behavior occurs when you make a significant or expensive purchase, like ...
A Consumer's Buying Behaviour Essay
750 Words. 3 Pages. Open Document. A Consumer's Buying Behavior. A consumer's buyer behavior is influenced by four major factors; cultural, social, personal, and psychological factors. These factors cause consumers to develop product and brand preferences. Although many of these factors cannot be directly controlled by marketers, understanding ...
3.1: Understanding Consumer Markets and Buying Behavior
Consumer buying behavior refers to the decisions and actions people undertake to buy products or services for personal use. In other words, it's the actions you take before buying a product or service, and as you will see, many factors influence that behavior. You and all other consumers combine to make up the consumer market.
The goods on consumer behavior
That's why some consumer psychologists and researchers in related fields, like marketing and business, are interested in tackling these social issues through the lens of consumerism. Consumer researchers are working to understand how and why consumers make beneficial choices in areas including sustainability, health, and financial well-being.
PDF Understanding and shaping consumer behavior in the next normal
Five actions can help companies influence consumer behavior for the longer term: — Reinforce positive new beliefs. — Shape emerging habits with new offerings. — Sustain new habits, using contextual cues. — Align messages to consumer mindsets. — Analyze consumer beliefs and behaviors at a granular level. Reinforce positive new beliefs.
PDF Essays on the dynamics of consumer behavior
Consumer behavior is to some extent habitual and influenced by the consumers previous consumption patterns (Wood and Neal, 2009). Consumption is furthermore a social phenomenon, because individuals are influenced by each-others opinions and behavior (Kelley, 1967). Therefore consumer behavior is also influenced by what other consumers say and do.
How People Make Buying Decisions: Factors That Influence Consumers
As we mentioned earlier in the chapter, consumer behavior is influenced by many things, including environmental and marketing factors, the situation, personal and psychological factors, family, and culture. Businesses try to figure out trends so they can reach the people most likely to buy their products in the most cost-effective way possible.
Buying Behaviors: Psychological Factors
Motivation. Motivation is the inward drive we have to get what we need. In the mid-1900s, Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, developed the hierarchy of needs shown in Figure 3.4 "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs". Maslow theorized that people have to fulfill their basic needs—food, water, and sleep—before they can begin fulfilling ...
Factors That Influence Consumer Behavior Essay
There are several factors which influence the buying decision of consumers; internal and external. Culture is the most pervasive of all these external influences. It represents the influences imposed on the consumer by other individuals, their societal norms, beliefs, values, rituals, customs and roles. Culture, as defined in the textbook, is ...
Buying Behaviors: Personal Factors
Your self-concept is how you see yourself—be it positive or negative. Your ideal self is how you would like to see yourself—whether it's prettier, more popular, more eco-conscious, or more "goth," and others' self-concept, or how you think others see you, also influences your purchase behavior. Marketing researchers believe people ...
3.2 Factors That Influence Consumer Buying Behavior
Psychological Factors That Influence Consumer Buying Behavior. Your buying choices are further influenced by several major psychological factors, including motivation, perception, learning, feelings, beliefs, and attitudes (refer to Figure 3.7 ). Let's first consider how motivation affects your buying behavior.
PDF PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS INFLUENCING CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
Consumer Behaviour in a general sense can be considered to be everything, as every aspect of our lives revolves around the consumption of goods and services. The field of consumer behaviour covers a wide stretch of bases as it focuses on the entire consumption process, involving issues that influence a consumer before, after and during a purchase.
(PDF) Factors affecting consumer buying behavior
the factors that the individual brings to the buying situation. and secondly the decision processes that are used. The consumer behavio ur or buyer behaviour is influence d. by several factors or ...
Analyzing Consumer Behavior: Key Insights & Understanding
The psychological aspects of consumer behavior include attitudes, perception, motivations, and learning and can be powerful drivers of purchasing decisions. Psychologist Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs sheds light on how some of these factors influence our decisions. At the top of this hierarchy are basic needs, such as food, shelter, and ...
The Influence of Consumer Behavior, Perspectives and ...
In addition the influence of consumer characteristics (i.e., brand loyalty) and shopping situations (i.e., urgency of purchase) on the effect of each remedy on consumer behavior was examined.
Personality and Related Characteristics That Affect Consumer Buying
Personality. Personality and other related characteristics affect the way people behave, period. And that also goes for our behavior as consumers. As consumers, we tend to buy not only products that we need, but those we see as being consistent with our "self-concept." In other words, we generally want our products to match, or to blend in ...
Understand the psychology of Consumer's buying behaviour in businesses
Ethical considerations in consumer behavior; Consumer Buying Behavior: Definition and Significance. Consumer buying behavior studies how and why individuals purchase goods or services. Understanding consumer behavior is crucial for businesses to create effective marketing strategies that appeal to potential customers and lead to increased sales.
PDF The Psychology of Consumer Behaviour: Understanding How ...
This research paper explores the psychology of consumer behavior and how it affects decision-making in marketing. The literature review discusses the cognitive biases, emotions, social and cultural factors, and consumer psychology principles that influence customer behavior. The research is designed to test the hypothesis that consumer behavior ...
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Enhanced Customer Engagement. Personalized marketing creates a sense of understanding and connection between consumers. and a brand, as it demonstrates an awareness of their preferences and needs ...