Lesson 15 : Analyzing Consumer Market and Buyer Behavior
Personal factors
A buyer’s decisions are also influenced by personal characteristics. These include the buyer’s age and stage in the life cycle, occupation, economic circumstances, lifestyle, personality & self concept.
Age and stage in the life cycle- People buy different goods and services over their lifetime. They eat baby food in the early years, most foods in the growing and mature years and special diets in the later years. People’s tastes in clothes, furniture and recreation are also age related.
Occupation- A person’s occupation also influences his or her consumption pattern. Marketers try to identify the occupational groups that have above – average interest in their products and services. A company can even specialize its products for certain occupational groups.
Economic circumstances- Product choices are greatly affected by one’s economic circumstances. Economic stability consist of their spend able income (its level, stability and time pattern), saving and assets (including the percentage that is liquid), debts, borrowing power, attitude toward spending versus saving.
Lifestyle- People coming from the same subculture, social class and occupation may lead quite different lifestyles. A person’s lifestyle is the person’s pattern of living in the world as expressed in the persons activities, interests & opinions.
Personality and self-concept- Each person has a distinct personality that influences his or her buying behavior. By personality, we mean a person’s distinguishing psychological characteristics that lead to relatively consistent and enduring responses to his or her environment.
Participants