Consumers are people who buy and use things. Consumer behaviour encompasses how they make choices, as well as how they process information, perceive the world around them, and how they come to understand themselves and their choices.
5 Factors That Influence Buyer Behaviour
Consumers today face many, often complicated decisions. Understanding how and why consumers make their choices is no easy task — but, luckily, there are lots of ways to learn more about the factors that influence consumer behaviour! In this course, we’ll cover five major factors:
1. Psychological Factors
Psychological factors include personality, perceptions, well-being and beliefs. These are not easy to measure, but they play a huge role in influencing your customers’ buying decisions. For example, someone who values family members will have different behaviours than someone who is motivated by self-reliance and independence.
2. Personal Factors
Although we might think of personal factors as being related to demographic traits, such as age and generation, the truth is that personal factors can be everything from your gender, occupation and location to more lifestyle-based qualities. One example of a personal factor is age.
3. Social Factors
Culture is key when it comes to consumer behaviour. The influence consumer’s social networks — the people they regularly have face-to-face interactions with — can have on their buying behaviours and processes are significant
4. Economic Factors
When you look at the impact of socio-economic factors on consumer behaviour, it becomes clear that there’s a great deal that influences people’s shopping patterns.
5. Situational Factors
There are many different situational factors that can influence consumer behaviour. One common situational factor is the holidays when many consumers aren’t working and have more time to shop. Other factors, like mindset, mood and attitude, are more personal (but equally influential).
What Is Consumer Behaviour Theory?
Consumer behaviour theories are a series of psychological models used to explain consumer behaviour. They are used by advertisers, marketers, and educators to understand how consumers make purchase decisions and plan their own behaviours. These models work towards predicting when and why customers will buy your product.
Consumer Behaviour Models
Consumer behaviour in marketing is the process by which consumers acquire and exchange information about products, services, and other people. Consumer behaviour has been researched heavily over many decades and multiple models have been developed to classify consumer behaviour. Some of the traditional consumer behaviour models, which are based on unconscious consumer desires, include the:
Consumers make purchase decisions based on a consumer’s motivations, ambitions, desires, and fears. The psychoanalytic model explains that consumers’ motivations influence their purchase decisions. Sociologists believe that individuals are influenced by their place within different social groups and communities.
There are also contemporary consumer behaviour models that see purchase decisions as the result of conscious, decision-making processes. For example, some existing models are:
According to the Reasoned Action Theory, repeated promotional campaigns can influence consumers’ purchase decisions. The Motivation Need Theory states that once a new product has been introduced into the market and is no longer new, it will be reduced back to its original price to attract sales. The Impulse Buying Theory suggests that buyers may not have researched a product before purchasing it and are more likely to buy an item impulsively if they need something quickly, such as food or clothing which many people purchase at times of stress or emergency.
Distributor and consumer management. A distributor is a retailer of a product, who distributes it to other retailers. A consumer is either a consumer who buys products from distributors or another professional who buys for consumers, such as teachers in schools. This course teaches you all about connecting with your customers and different roles that exist within the retail environment
