Factors Influencing Consumer Behaviour

A consumer’s buying behaviour is influenced by Cultural, Social and Personal factors.

Cultural Factors:

Culture, subculture and social class are the most important influences on consumer behaviour of a person. A person growing up in a certain country would have a different values and behaviour than the person in some other country. For example a child growing up in India would have completely different set of values than a child growing up in America.

Within a culture there are smaller subcultures. Take for example a country like India where a value like respect for elders is found everywhere but there are certain values and traits unique for people living in different states.

Within every society social stratification is exhibited. Social Classes are a way to represent this phenomena. In India, Socio-Economic Classification is done to classify buyers in urban areas which represents people of different social class.

Social Factors:

Social factors such as reference groups, family, role in society also play an important role in a consumer’s behaviour.

Reference groups are the groups which a person interacts with on regular basis. They have a direct or an indirect impact on attitudes and behaviour. There are primary groups with which a person interacts on a daily/regular basis. Family and friends comes under primary groups. Then there are secondary groups such as professional, religious groups. Reference groups play important role in shaping up behaviour and attitudes as an individual is exposed to different lifestyles, value systems.

Family is the most important and influential primary reference group. There are two families in buyer’s life1) Family of Orientation which consists of parents and siblings

2) Family of Procreation which consists of person’s spouse and children.

The values that a person gets from these two are different. While most of the fundamental values such as religion, politics etc are shaped by the Family of Orientation, the everyday buying behaviour is influenced by the Family of Procreation.

Roles and Status – Roles in society dictates the behaviour. A vice president of an MNC would have different status than that of a sales manager and hence their attitudes and behaviour would be very different

Personal Factors

Age and Stage in the Life Cycle, Economic Status, Personality, and Lifestyle are the personal factors which influence a buyer’s decision.

Age and Stage in the Life Cycle: The buying behaviour of a person in the teenage and a person in the 60s would be very different.

Economic Status: An affluent family/person would have different buying patterns than someone who is from a lower income group.

Personality: By personality, we mean certain psychological traits of a person which play an important role in a buying decision.

Lifestyle: The pattern of living of individuals maybe different even if they are from a same subgroups, social class, occupation, status. This pattern of living also plays a part in consumer’s buying behaviour.