5.

4 Factors Influencing Buyer Behaviour

These are also known as the characteristics affecting consumer buying behaviour. The character
of a consumer will largely be affected and or influenced by the following factors:
1. Cultural factors: (Culture, Sub Culture and Social Class)
2. Social factors: (Reference Groups, family and roles and Status)
3. Personal factors: (Age and Life Cycle Stage, Occupation, Economic Situation, Lifestyle,
Personality and Self Concept).
4. Psychological factors: (Motivation, Attitudes, Perception, Learning and Beliefs)
Factors influencing buyer behavior:

Culture

1. Cultural factors Sub-Culture

Social Class

Reference group

Direct influence
- Membership groups
 Primary
 Secondary
2. Social factors
Indirect influence

of orientation
Family
of procreation

Opinion leaders

Roles and statuses

Age and stage in the life cycle

Occupation
3. Personal factors
Economic circumstances

Lifestyle

Personality and self concept

 Motive

Perception

4. Psychological
Factors Learning

Beliefs and attitude

1. Cultural Factors (Characteristics)

The marketer must understand the role played by the buyer’s culture, subculture and
social class.
(a) Culture – Culture is a society’s personality. It is the sum total of learned beliefs,
values and customs that serve to direct and regulate the consumer behaviour of
members of a particular society. It affects a person’s wants and behaviour. Beliefs
and values are guides for consumer behaviour. Customs are usual and accepted
ways of behaving.
The impact of culture on society is so natural and so ingrained that its influence
on behaviour is rarely noted. Yet culture offers order, direction and guidance to
society members in all phases of human problem solving
Growing up in a society a child learns the basic values, perceptions, wants and
behaviours from the family and other important cultural institutions e.g. different
cultures assign different meanings to colour. White is usually associated with
 purity and cleanliness in Western communities. However it can signify death in
Asian countries.
Also according to Taiwan culture, a man puts on green cloths to signify his wife
has been unfaithful.

(b) Subculture – Subculture is a distinct cultural group that exists as an identifiable

segment within a larger, more complex society. It includes nationalities, religions,
racial groups, age subcultures, gender subcultures and geographic regions. Many
subcultures make up important market segments and marketers often design
products tailored to their needs e.g. the Black Americans in the United States are
strongly motivated by quality and selection. They place more importance on
brand names and are more brand loyal.

Sub cultural analysis enables the marketer to focus on sizeable and natural market
segments. The marketer must determine whether the beliefs, values and customs
shared by the members of a specific subgroup make them desirable candidates for
special marketing attention. Subcultures are hence relevant units of analysis for
market research.

(c) Social Class is a continuum or a range of social positions on which each member
of the society may be placed. It is the division of members of a society into a
hierarchy of distinct status classes, so that members of each class have relatively
the same status and members of all other classes have either more or less status.
Social classes are society’s relatively permanent and ordered divisions whose
members share similar values, interests and behaviours e.g. of social class: upper
class, middle class, lower class.

Social class is determined by many factors like income, occupation, education,

wealth and other variables. Marketers are interested in social class because
people within a given social class tend to exhibit similar buying behaviour. Social
 classes show distinct product and brand preferences in areas like clothing, home
furnishings, automobiles etc.

2. Social Factors
The buyer’s behaviour may also be influenced by social factors, such as groups, the
family, social roles and status.

(a) Reference Groups – A group is a combination of two or more people who have
come together or interact to accomplish individual or mutual goals.

A group member is influenced by the other members as one strives to belong.

Marketers try to identify the reference groups of their target markets. Reference
groups expose a person to new behaviours, lifestyles and create pressure to
conform e.g. a group of young people can be attracted to the football game and
would wish to put on branded products just like the football player whom they
wish to imitate.
(b) Family
Marketers are interested in the roles and influence of the husband, wife, children
and house help on the purchase of different products and service. In most
families, the wife is the main buyer of food, household products and clothes. The
husband is the main buyer f hardware, car or even a home. However changes in
the market trend have seen women take up the reverse roles.

Children and house helps are the main consumers of T.V. adverts and may from
time to time influence the family buying decisions.

(c) Roles and Status

A role consist of the activities a person is expected to perform according to the
people around them e.g. Mary is a daughter to her parents, she plays the role of a
 daughter, in her family, she plays the role of a wife, in her company she plays the
role of the brand manager. Each of her roles influences her buying behaviour.

3. Personal factors
These are common individual characteristics that can influence one’s behaviour or
decisions. They include the buyer’s age and life cycle stage, occupation, economic
situation, lifestyle, personality and self concept.

(a) Age and Lifecycle Stage

Marketers often define their target markets in terms of the life-cycle stage and
develop appropriate products and marketing plans for each stage.

Traditionally family life-cycle include:

Stage Buying/behaviour pattern

Bachelor stage: - Few financial burden
Young, single people - Fashion opinion leaders
- Recreation orientated
They Buy: Basic kitchen equipment, basic furniture, cars,
vacations.

Newly married couples Better off financially than they will be in the near future.
Young, no children Highest purchase rates and highest average purchase of
durables.
They Buy: Cars, fridges, stoves, furniture, vacations.

Full nest I Home purchasing at peak.

Oldest child under six Interested in new product, likes advertised products.
Buys: TV, baby food, toys.

Full nest II Financial position better less influenced by advertising.

Youngest child over six. Buy: Many foods, Music lessons.

Full nest III Home ownership at peak, not interested in new products.
Older married couples with
dependent children.

Empty nest I Home ownership at peak, not interested in new products.

Older married couples
No children living with them
Empty nest II Drastic cut in income. Keep home.
Older married Buy: Medical appliances, medical care products that aid in
Head of household retired sleep, health and digestion.

Solitary survivor, in labour Income still good but likely to sell house.
force.

Solitary survivor. Medical needs

Retired. Drastic cut in incomes. Special need for attention, affection
and security.

(b) Economic Situation

Product choice is greatly affected by ones economic circumstances.

People’s economic circumstances consist of:
o Their spendable incomes (level, stability and time pattern)
o Savings
o Assets
o Debts
o Borrowing power and
o Attitude toward spending verses savings, among others

Economic situation of an individual affect his/her buying ability. A high income

earner has more income to spend and a low income earner has little income to
spend. Marketers of income sensitive goods watch trends in personal income,
savings and interest rates. During economic recession, marketers must re-price
reposition or even redesign their products.
(c) Lifestyle
Lifestyle is a person’s pattern of living as expressed in his or her activities,
interest and opinions. Marketers classify people based on how they spend their
money and time as follows:
(i) Status oriented buyers – Base their purchases on the actions and opinions
of others.
(ii) Action oriented buyers – Are driven by their desire for acting, risk taking
and variety.
(iii) Principle oriented buyers – Consumers who buy based on their views of
the world.
Based on lifestyle, consumers can also be classified as:
(i) Actualisers – People with so many resources that they can indulge in any
of the orientations above.
(ii) Achievers – People with middle income and just enough resources. They
strive to be actualisers and are often status oriented.
(iii) Strivers – People with little resources and are principle oriented.
(iv) Strugglers – People with too few or no resources. They are often not
included in any consumer orientation.
(v) Other life style classifications such as
a. Those interested in change
b. Followers
c. Traditionalists
d. Contented
e. Under achievers, etc.

Lifestyle study is used by marketers to design appropriate adverts for each class of
consumers.

(e) Personality and Self-concept

Personality is the distinguishing psychological characteristic that leads to
relatively consisted and lasting responses to one’s own environment.
 Personality can be described as self-confident, dominant, social, defensive,
adaptable and aggressive.

Personality is useful in analyzing consumer behaviour for certain products e.g.

coffee marketers have discovered that heavy coffee drinkers are highly sociable.

4. Psychological Factors
A person’s buying choices are further influenced by motivation, perception,
learning, beliefs and attitudes.

(a) Motivation
A motive (drive) is a need that is sufficiently pressing to direct the person to seek
satisfaction.
Many marketers develop adverts bearing in mind their products ability to quench
the buyers motive e.g. the Pepsi slogan “dear for more”,
The Sprite advert “obey your thirst”, Nakumatt slogan “You need it we’ve got
it”, Toyota Pickup advert, ‘Shujaa wa Kazi’ etc.

Abraham Maslow
Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) forwarded the theory of motivation. Maslow concluded that the
needs that people are motivated to satisfy fall into a well defined hierarchy.
Self Act.

Esteem Needs
Belongingness

Safety needs

Physiological Needs
 Physiological needs are at the bottom of the hierarchy and they include the need for food and
shelter. Management ensures this is done by paying employees good wages.

Safety needs include assuring employees of security of tenure. Managers see to the safety needs
by paying employees well to avoid employee turnover.

Belongingness requires that employees be able to recognize with certain groups and that such
groups should equally recognize the employee. Management takes care of this level of needs by
grouping employees into departments e.g. Production, Sales and Accounts amongst others.

Esteem needs are those that are realized when the employee is allowed to be responsible for an
activity or a group of people. Management ensures this level of need is met by giving employees
an opportunity of leading the group e.g. becoming the Production Manager, Sales Manger etc.

Self Actualization needs are at the top of the hierarchy. Employees attain self actualization
when they are allowed to reach their highest potential i.e. when they are doing the very best they
can do under given circumstance. The motivating factor at this level of needs is recognition.
Employees will appreciate rewards such as employee of the year, Sales man of the year, C.E.O
of the year amongst others.
Maslow theory of motivation was based on three assumptions about human nature;
i. Human beings have needs that are never completely satisfied
ii. Human action is aimed at fulfilling the needs that are unsatisfied at a given point in time.
iii. Human needs fit into a predictable hierarchy, ranging from basic, lower levels needs to
higher needs at the top.

Maslow’s work dramatized to managers that workers have needs beyond the basic requirement
of earning money to put food on the table. This concept conflicted with the scientific
management approach that emphasized the importance of pay.
(b) Perception
 Perception refers to the process of receiving, organizing, and assigning meaning to
information or stimuli detected by the five senses from the environment to help to make a
choice. It is a way consumers interpret or give meaning to the environment surrounding
them. It involves seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling.

Consumers will perceive a certain market offering only after they have perceived sensory
stimuli. Eg
 Seeing plays a role in purchasing such items as; jewelry and fashion clothes
 Hearing plays a role in purchasing musical equipment and electronic equipments.
 Feeling plays a role in purchasing clothes/materials and even fruits.
 Tasting plays a role in purchasing sweets, food stuffs.
 Smelling plays a role in purchasing deodorants, perfumes, flowers.

There are certain factors that play a role in perception. They include
 Perception being selective whereby individuals are exposed to a lot of information
whereby they select only a relatively small percentage of it. (Perceptual defense)
 Perception being subjective when individuals see and hear what they are interested in
because of what they are, what they believe, what their values are etc.
 Perception being based upon individuals past experience where by the experience has
built up a relatively stable cognitive organization within the individual that determines
the meaning of a particular perception.

There are certain Perceptual defense mechanisms that consumers tend to have against
undesirable stimuli from the environment. They include:
Selective exposure
Occurs when people selectively choose to expose themselves only to certain stimuli. Eg turning
of the television when commercials come on, quickly paging through a magazine and missing
adverts.

Selective attention
Occurs when the individual doesn’t pay full attention to the stimuli picked up by the senses. It
makes or causes a consumer not to comprehend the content of the marketing message.
Selective interpretation
Occurs when the stimuli are perceived but the message itself is not interpreted as it was intended
to be. Consumers can interpret the marketing message incorrectly by distorting the meaning or
by misunderstanding it.
Selective recall
Refers to the individual ability to remember only certain stimuli, and to forget others which may
be important.
A marketing department may find different ways to deal with the above defense mechanisms.
1. Selective attention and recall
 Large stimuli can be offered to the market e.g. One page advertisements in newspapers,
higher frequency i.e. repetition in TV and radio
 Use both color and movements when advertising which attracts attention.
 In supermarkets objects can be placed near the center of the visual fields.

2. Selective Interpretation
 Marketers should pre test their message so as to achieve correct interpretation of the
message
 Marketers should determine how cultural differences influence the use of colors, symbols
and numbers so as to correctly pass the message appropriately to certain cultures, races
etc.
 Marketers should not set unrealistic expectations.

3. Selective retention
 For effective retention marketers should incorporate visibility of their products through
demonstrations
 Repetition of the message is important to reinforce the message
 Marketers should make use of the consumer’s ability to learn.

(c) Learning
Learning describes changes in an individual’s behaviour arising from experience.
Most human behaviour is learned. Learning occurs through the interplay of
drives, stimuli, cues, responses and reinforcement e.g. if a consumer buys a Nokia
phone, if his experience with the phone is rewarding he will in future reinforce
this behaviour by buying it again. But if it is not rewarding he will not reinforce
the need for that product.
(d) Beliefs
A belief is a descriptive thought that a person has about something e.g. Kenyans
have an attitude that Nissan cars are not durable on Kenyan roads and are highly
in favour of Toyota cars. These beliefs may be based on real knowledge, opinion
or faith.
Marketers must understand the beliefs that people formulate about a specific
product because the belief make up product and brand images.
If some beliefs are wrong and prevent purchase, a marketer launches a campaign
to correct them e.g. the Jik advert on detergents that bleach and tear your
garments, the Nissan X-trail advert that depicts Nissan on rough roads.
 (e) Attitudes
Attitude is a person’s consistently favourable or unfavourable evaluation, feelings
and tendencies toward an object or idea e.g. people have the attitude that Japanese
electronics are quality products while Chinese electronics are poor quality
products.
A marketer must understand people’s attitudes and try to change them to their
benefit.
Buying Decision for a new Product
6.4.1 Introduction
A new product is a good or service or idea that is perceived by some potential customers as new.
New products take some time before they are finally adopted for use by the consumers. The
process through which a new idea or product is received and consequently accepted by
consumers is referred to as the consumer adoption process.

Consumer Adoption Process

This is the mental process through which an individual passes from first hearing about an
innovation to final acceptance of the product. It is how a buyer approaches the purchase of a new
product, a good, a service or an idea that is perceived by some potential consumers as new.

The product may have been around for a while. However, the interest is in how consumers learn
about it for the first time and make decisions on whether to adopt it or not. Adoption is the
decision by an individual to become a regular user of the product.

Stages in the Adoption Process:

Consumers go through five stages in the process of adopting a new product:
(i) Awareness – The consumer gets to know of the new product, but lacks
information about it.
(ii) Interest – The consumer seeks information about the new product.
(iii) Evaluation – On receiving additional information on the product, the
 potential consumer make a consideration as to whether trying out the new
product makes sense.
(iv) Trial – The consumer makes a trial of the new product on a small scale. This
is to help in estimation of the products value.
(v) Adoption – On receiving full satisfaction after the trial, the consumer decides
to make full use and adoption of the new product.

Adoption Rate of a New Product

According to Rogers’ theory of innovation, people differ greatly in their readiness to try new
products. There are five groups of people based on their adoption rate.
(i) Innovators – Are venturesome. Try new ideas as soon as they get to
know of it irrespective of the risk. Are eager, daring, more
cosmopolite in social relationships and communicate with other
innovators. (2.5%).
(ii) Early adopters – Are guided by respect. They are opinion leaders in their
communities and adopt new ideas early but carefully. Are role
models for people to check with before adopting a new idea,
product or service. (13.5%).
(iii) Early majority – Are deliberate, rarely leaders but they adopt new ideas before
the average person and time. Deliberate for sometime before
adopting a new idea. (34%).
(iv) The late majority – Are skeptical individuals. They adopt an innovation only
after a majority of people have tried it. Adoption is due to
economical necessity and a reaction to peer pressure. The
adoption is approached cautiously. (34%)
(v) Laggards – Are traditions bound. They are suspicious of changes and adopt
an innovation only when it has become something of a tradition itself. (16%).
Rogers classified these grioupings as shown below:
 34%
34% Late
Early Majority
Majority
14% 16%
Early Laggards
3%
Adopters
Innovators
X-20 X-0 X X+0

In general, innovators and early adopters are relatively younger, better educated, and higher
income than late adopters and non adopters. Marketers with new innovations should research the
characteristics of innovators and early adopters and should direct marketing efforts towards
them.

The Influence of Product Characteristics on Adoption Rate

The characteristics of a new product affect its adoption rate. While some new products catch on
almost immediately or overnight, others take a long time to gain acceptance. The five product
characteristics are significant in influencing an innovation’s adoption rates are:
a) Relative Advantages: Is the degree to which an innovation appears superior to
the existing products or services. The greater the perceived
relative advantage in picture, quality and ease of operation the
sooner the adoption.
 b) Compatibility: Is the degree to which an innovation fits the values and
experiences of potential consumers.
c) Complexity: Is the degree to which an innovation is difficult to understand or
use.
d) Divisibility: Is the degree to which an innovation may be tried on a limited basis.
Deer innovations have a slow adoption rate.
e) Communication: Is the degree to which the results of using an innovation may
be observed or experienced to others. An innovation that leads itself to
demonstration and description will be adopted faster by the consumers.
Other characteristics are like initial and on-going cases, risks and uncertainty and social
approval. A new product marketer must research on all the factors when developing the new
product, idea or service and its marketing program.