Marketing: Forces that affect consumer buying

Marketing : Forces that affect consumer buying

Understanding consumer behavior helps you identify the most appropriate offering to fulfill consumer demands.

People decide to buy products for many different reasons. The table below shows just a few examples of the forces—cultural, social, personal, and psychological—that most influence individuals' purchasing decisions.

Forces Affecting Consumer Buying

Cultural Forces	National values, such as an emphasis on material comfort, youthfulness, or patriotism	Ethnic or religious messages or priorities	Identification with a particular socioeconomic class
Social Forces	Friends, neighbors, coworkers, and other groups with whom people interact frequently and informally	Family members, friends: parents, spouses, partners, children, siblings	Individuals' own status within their families, clubs, or other organizations
Personal Forces	Age: including stage in the life cycle; for example, adolescence or retirement	Occupation, economic circumstances, and lifestyle (or activities, interests, and opinions)	Personality and self-image: including how people view themselves and how they think others view them
Psychological Forces	Motives: conscious and subconscious needs that are pressing enough to drive a person to take action; for example, the need for safety or self-esteem	Perceptions (interpretations of a situation), beliefs, and attitudes (a person's enduring evaluation of a thing or idea)	Learning: changes in someone's behavior because of experience or study