Consumer behavior is the process, when consumer buys, select and consumer goods and services for the satisfaction of their needs and wants. At first consumer finds the goods which he wants to consume and then he select the goods which fulfilled his need and after selecting the goods consumer check the availability of money which he wants to spend and at last consumer check out the price of goods and take the decision. There are lots of factors which affect the purchase of consumer like social, cultural, demographic, psychological, personality etc. Now we discuss these factors in detail like consumer behavior is affected by cultural factor such as buyer culture, sub-culture and social class. Culture affects the buying behavior of consumer it differ from country to country, so marketer have to take a wise step for determining the culture of various group, class, regions as well as countries. Sub-culture himself include various sub-culture which includes race, age of people, geographic regions etc, so marketer can make product according to the needs and wants of a particular geographic groups. Social class and factors every society have some social class because people belongs to same social class have same buying behavior like role of children, working women, education etc which affect consumer buying behavior. Reference group also influence the behavior of consumers it have a great impact over products and brands, opinion leader is also a part of reference group , reference group is basically those people who influence other because of their personality, ability , knowledge etc.
Age also influence consumer buying behavior like with the passage of time consumer needs and wants change so their purchasing behavior is also change. Family also influence the purchasing behavior of consumers like in family which person play a dominant role while purchasing who make the decision of purchasing. Economic stability also influence the behavior of consumers like if there is inflation in the country so consumer purchasing power is low and in deflation consumer purchasing power is quite high. Motivation also play a dominant role like through motivating other persons or motivating through advertisement consumer purchasing behavior affected. Personality also influence consumer behavior it differ from person to person time to time and place like through the personality of different celebrity consumer purchasing behavior is changing.
Psychological factors also include motivation and belief and attitudes like different people have different belief and attitude, hence beliefs and attitude built the goodwill of the brand which affects the behavior of consumers.
Literature review:
Consumer behavior is affected through many factors out of which shopping orientation and demographic factors are the most prominent one which affect the consumer behavior. The shopping orientation is basically tells that what is the behavior of peoples during shopping or purchasing of any item as the past studies shows that the women’s are more involved in shopping like purchasing of clothes, cosmetics, grocessory items etc, on the other hand men’s are more involved in purchasing of an electronic items. As the technology changes with the passage of time now shopping is done through online like Amazon, wall mart, Axact, Del, D and G, Levis etc are the well known companies they offers online shopping through their websites through these websites consumers can done their shopping without any waste of time and within 24 hours your purchase item is at your door step, while demographic factors includes lots of variables which affect the behavior of consumer but the most prominent variables in demographic factors which we found are gender, family size, earnings, locality, expenses, age . The term Gender involved men and women which describes that what sort of a behavior of men’s and women’s while purchasing any product different studies shows that women’s are more convincing behavior during purchasing of any product and always confused and dissatisfied while purchasing as men’s are no more convincing behavior and satisfied on purchasing item.
Age also play a dominant role on consumer behavior like with the passage of time as the age of any person increases his needs and wants is also increases usually those people whose age are between 18 to 50 , we see that their purchasing behavior changes simultaneously. Earning is basically observed in terms of money and money is obtained through business or a person doing a job. Those people who have their own business or having a respectable job their purchasing behavior is quite change from those who don’t have any respectable job or business or they have low earning power like poor class people, labors, beggars etc, these people have low earnings which affect their way of purchasing because their needs and wants is quite different from those who have high earning power.
Consumer behavior is also affected by family size it basically includes two things first thing is that those people who have bigger or joint family system their way of living and purchasing behavior is different from those people who have small family size or live independently, and the second thing is that in family size which person plays a dominant role while purchasing any product or who make the decision of purchasing for example if the decision of buying is taken by the women’s in the families so the marketer focus on women’s by different advertisements.
Consumer behavior is also affected through locality it means that those peoples who belongs to different locality have different purchasing behavior locality includes place, regions, localities, neighborhood etc. And the last factor is expenses which also affect the behavior of consumer it means that those people who have high earning power their way of living or life style is automatically high which means that their expenses are high which affect their purchasing behavior as compare to those people who have low earning power, so their way of life style is low which simply means that their expenses are low which affect their way of purchasing behavior.
The past studies shows many research articles regarding factors affecting consumer buying behavior which are discuss below.
The first research paper is about gender differences in cognitive and affective impulse buying.
Coley and burgess in the university of Georgia, Athens, USA in (2003).” Compare men and women for differences in affective and cognitive processes associated with impulse buying behavior and to identify gender differences in terms of impulsive purchase made from a variety of product categories”(p. 282). Using sample data of 277 with the help of cronbach alpha test which determined factor of reliability and principal component analysis with varimax rotation. The finding s shows that men’s are more likely to purchase technological items and entertainment or sports items with respects to women’s, while women’s are concerned with beauty and health products. However, the implication shows that retailer make such an atmosphere in the market places which attracts consumers for shopping music and lightening is more effective for women’s because men`s are usually concern with functional items so for men`s retailer should adopt the different strategies of promotion or discount schemes for them.
The second research paper is about family analysis structure and joint purchase decision: two products.
Ndubisi and Koo in power project consultancy, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia in (2005). “ Studied the impact of family structure on joint purchase decision of Malaysian spouses for the following products: furniture, vacation and aggregate or over all products (a combination of furniture and vacation)”(p. 53). Using sample data of 103 respondents with the help of cronbachs alpha which shows the impact of family structure on joint purchase decision. The findings shows that the families which are more strong makes more joint decision on furniture rather than weaker one and a modern family makes more joint decisions on furniture rather than those family which follows their traditional policies, a stronger united family also make more joint decisions on vacations and aggregate products as compare to traditional ones and weaker ones. However, the implication suggests that the strong family is more united over weaker one in making joint purchase decision on various items.
The third research paper is about the effects of customized site features on internet apparel shopping.
Yang in the university of North Texas, Denton, USA and Yong in Alamaba agricultural and mechanical university USA in (2009). “ Examine the effects of customized site features on consumers purchasing decision aids and consumers’ attitudes toward internet apparel shopping”(p. 128). Using sample data of 363 respondents with the help of confirmatory factor analysis which determined the cronbachs alpha ranged from 0. 7 to 0. 8. The findings show a significant impact on the internet site features and determines the indirect effect on the purchase of apparel shopping. Newly information and offers have created a direct impact on consumers’ behavior towards shopping on internet apparel . However, the implication shows that e-retailers should create their own web-sites which should be easy to use and it includes all the features on internet apparel shopping.
And the fourth research paper is about E-tail spending And the importance of online store familiarity.
Stranahan in the university of North Florida Jacksonville USA and Kosiel in Addison Whitney, Atlanta, Georgia, USA in (2009).” Explore patterns in e-tail spending across different demographic groups and to predict which households are the most frequent shoppers and highest spenders. Further, it aims to investigate which households are least likely to purchase from unfamiliar online stores”(p. 421). Using sample data of 512 through different interviews with the help of regression analysis which determines the impact of household who purchased different goods and services online. The findings shows that young generation specially males purchase products from unfamiliar stores as compare to females, non-urban respondents, the result shows that urban peoples don’t want to purchase product online as compare to people who live in rural areas. However, the implication shows that if we got useful information about the consumer online shopping then this information is beneficial for business sector and we will be able to predict the consumer buying behavior through this information.
