3.4 MAJOR FACTORS INFLUENCING BUYING BEHAVIOR

3.4 MAJOR FACTORS INFLUENCING BUYING BEHAVIOR

Personality-An individual’s personality relates to perceived personal characteristics that are consistently exhibited, especially when one acts in the presence of others.  In most, but not all, cases the behaviors one projects in a situation is similar to the behaviors a person exhibits in another situation.  In this way personality is the sum of sensory experiences others get from experiencing a person (i.e., how one talks, reacts).  While one’s personality is often interpreted by those we interact with, the person has their own vision of their personality, called Self Concept, which may or may not be the same has how others view us. 

 

 1.CULTURAL FACTORS

    Culture:

     Exert the maximum influence on consumer behavior. Culture is the basic determinant of a person wants. It refers to a set of learnt beliefs, values, attitudes, customs, habits and other forms of behavior that are shared in society.

  Sub Culture:

   Each culture consists of smaller subcultures that provide more specific identification and socialization for its members. They are four types of subcultures they are : 
Nationality groups
Religious groups
Racial groups

      Geographic groups

                             

Social Class:

     It is the divisions of people in the society, which are hierarchically ordered, and its members share similar values and behavior.

SOCIAL FACTORS

Reference Group

They are the social, economic or professional groups that have a direct or indirect influence on the person’s attitudes or behavior. Consumers accept information provided by their peer groups on the quality, performance, style etc of a product. These groups influence the person’s attitudes and expose them to a new behavior.

  Family

      It is the most influential group as the attitudes, habits and values are shaped by the family’s influence. The members of family play different roles such as influencer, decider, purchaser and user in the buying process.

  Roles and Status

       Roles represent the position we feel we hold or others feel we should hold when dealing in a group environment.  These positions carry certain responsibilities The consumers buying behavior is also influenced by the roles and status of person. It influences a person in taking a certain decision.

PERSONAL FACTORS

Age

    According to Russell People buy different goods and services over their lifetime. The lifecycle of a person is infancy, adolescence, teenage, adult middle age and old age. In each stage the persons buying behavior is different. The person is dependent on others during the first three stages, then in the next stage he not only takes decisions but also influences others buying decisions and in the last stage of the life cycle the decisions are again made by others.

Occupation

      It also influences his or her consumption pattern because occupation decides his ability to buy For example – A blue-collar worker will buy work clothes and work shoes while a company’s president will buy expensive suits, club memberships and a luxury car.

Economic Circumstances

    Products choice is greatly affected by ones economic circumstances. People’s economic circumstance consists of their spend able income, savings, assets, debts, borrowing power and attitude towards spending versus saving.

Lifestyle

   It is the pattern or way of living of a person. This will be indicated through the person’s activities, interests and opinions. Hence he will chose products according to his lifestyle.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS

Motivation

   Motivation relates to our desire to achieve a certain outcome. For instance, when it comes to making purchase decisions customers’ motivation could be affected by such issues as financial position (e.g., Can I afford the purchase?), time constraints (e.g., Do I need to make the purchase quickly?), overall value (e.g., Am I getting my money’s worth?), and perceived risk (e.g., What happens if I make a bad decision?).Psychologists have developed theories of human motivation. The best three motivation theories are given by Sigmund Freud, Abraham Maslow and Frederick Herzberg.

   Perception

      A motivated person is ready to act. How the motivated person actually acts is influenced by his or her perception of the situation. To perceive is to see, to hear, to touch, to taste, to smell and to sense something so as to find meaning in the experience. People can emerge with different Perceptions of the same object because of three perpetual processes that is selective retention, selective attention and selective distortion.

Learning

   Learning involves changes in an individual’s behavior arising from experience or practice. Most human behavior is learned. It is produced through the interplay of drives, stimuli, cues, responses and reinforcement.

Beliefs and Attitudes

     A belief is a descriptive thought that a person holds something. Through doing and learning, people acquire beliefs and attitudes. These in turn influence their buyer behavior. The beliefs may be based on knowledge, opinion, or faith. They may or may not carry an emotional charge.

An attitude is a person enduring favorable or unfavorable evaluations, emotional feelings, and action tendencies toward some object or idea. People have attitudes toward almost everything: religion, politics, clothes, music, food and so on. Attitudes put them into a frame of mind of liking or disliking an object.