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Consumer behavior is defined as the research and understanding of how human beings, singularly or as a group, consider and accept organizational offerings, as well as how these choices impact culture as a whole.
When we talk about consumer behavior, it's important that the business understands the consumer. Recall the 4 C's. You have to be able to get inside the consumer's head and understand who it is you're targeting for your product.
We're going to explore this process through psychology for the individual, and through sociology for a group as a whole.
There are four influences on consumer behavior.
| Influence on Consumer Behavior | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Psychological Influences | Influences on a consumer opinion that are related to the scientific study of how human beings think and respond to their environment. These can be influences based on satisfying basic needs such as hunger or shelter. | Am I hot, or am I cold? Am I hungry? Am I tired? These are all things that are going to influence you psychologically, so you can see how psychology can have an important impact on how a consumer makes decisions. |
| Personal Influences | Influences on customer opinions that are related to their interaction and response to the opinions of specific other people. These may be job-related, age-related, health-related, or possibly even wealth-related--basically those things that would describe the demographics of a particular group. | Consider a person who does welding for a job. His personal influences might impact his decision not to wear ballet slippers to the job site because it doesn't really fit his job and isn't conducive to what he's doing. Safety boots would be a much better option. |
| Social Influences | Influences on consumer opinion that are related to the opinions of groups or society--for instance, subcultures or subgroups, reference groups or aspirational groups. The groups that influence you are relative to where you're at in your personal life, such as being a Generation X'er or a hipster. | If you're part of a group that shuns the use of automobiles and thinks bicycles are the way to go, you probably wouldn't want to be looking for a car. A business wouldn't want to target your group for car buying. Whereas, for a bicycle manufacturer, this is exactly the target market that it wants to aim for. |
| Cultural Influences | Influences on consumer opinion that are related to the broad impact of a society in which they are living or have lived. Cultural norms impact consumer behavior. Food habits of a particular culture or ceremony--if, say, religion is a predominant part of that culture--are all things that are going to influence what a consumer will or will not buy. | If I asked you what was in a random mug on the table, would you say coffee? Or perhaps tea? Where we grow up or where we live has an effect on the choices or decisions that we make. If you'd grown up in a place where tea was the hot drink of choice, you might automatically assume that there is tea in the mug. If you're from a place where coffee is the norm, you might assume that there's coffee in that cup. |
Let's take a look at some examples to demonstrate how all of these influences work together in practice.
What factors might influence a new car purchase?
What factors might influence a cell phone purchase?
What factors might influence purchasing a pair of shoes?
Source: adapted from sophia instructor james howard
