Define the consumer market and describe the four major sets of factors that

influence consumer buyer behavior.

Identify the consumer market and describe four main sets of factors that influence consumer behavior.

The consumer market enables you to shop for products, goods and services. In the consumer market,
you are responsible for making decisions about how you spend money and use the goods you purchase.
The more people buying, the more active the consumer market is.

There are four main sets of factors that influence consumer behavior: cultural, social, personal, and
psychological.

The cultural factor. Culture is a highly complex vision of human behavior that includes human society,
the society's roles, society's behavior, its value conventions and traditions. Culture is the broadest
environmental determinant of consumer behavior. Cultural differences are particularly important for
international market participants. Cultures are not uniform entities with universal values. Each culture
includes numerous subcultures - groups with their specific forms of behavior.

The social factor. Consumers usually try to reconcile their buying behavior with their perception of the
values of their reference groups. Children usually base their purchase decisions on external forces - what
is popular with their friends, what is fashionable and trendy, what is popular, what their heroes and role
models (usually celebrities) use.

Social factors, divided into reference groups (within the social factors reference groups have great
potential to influence consumer behavior. This group often includes the opinion leader). Family, role
and status.

The behaviour of a consumer is not only influenced by their motivations and personalities but also their
families and family members who can two or more people living together either because of blood
relationship or marriage. The family group determines the consumer behaviour because of the close,
continuing interactions among family members. Like other groups, each family typically has norms of
expected behaviour and different roles and status relationships for its members.

People who belong to different organizations, groups or club members, families play roles and have a
status to maintain. These roles and status that they have to maintain also influences consumer
behaviour as they decide to spend accordingly.

Personal factor. A number of personal factors also influence the consumer behaviour. In fact this is one
major factor that influences consumer behaviour. The sub factors under personal factor are: age and life
cycle stage (with the age and the life cycle the consumers purchase options and the motive of purchase
changes, with his decisions of buying products change), occupation (the occupations group has above
average interest in buying different products and services offered by organizations), financial or
economic situations ( if the consumers or the economy of a nation is suffering a loss it defiantly affects
the consumers purchase or spending decisions), lifestyle, self concept and personality (very individual is
different and have different and distinct personalities).

Psychological factor consists of: motivation, perception, learning experience, attitude and beliefs.

Motivation arouses and directs the consumers towards certain goals. These needs can be psychological
needs, needs of security, social needs, esteem needs and also self actualizing needs.
Perception is sensing the world and the situations around and then taking a decision accordingly. This is
what separates the decision taking abilities.

Attitude is a consumer’s favorable and unfavorable emotional condition or emotional feeling, also its
tendency of reaction to certain actions and behavior. Beliefs of people that are the belief that people
assume the products to be as make the specifications of the products.

What characteristics influenced your choice of school?

When choosing a school, we do the same as customers in the store. Our decision making process is
divided into 5 stages:
availability of need,
information search,
alternative assessment,
purchase decision,
analysis after decision making.
The main thing for me is: convenient location, modernity, value models (cultural), ratings of cities
(psychological - beliefs), reviews of people, interior (social factor).

These are the same characteristics that will affect you when you decide what to do
on Saturday night?

No, the characteristics are different when you decide what to do on Saturday night. These are my mood
(psychological factor), personal preferences, the company of friends (social factor), traditions (cultural
factor). Most of these characteristics cannot be stable all the time .

What is subculture? Describe at least two subcultures to which you belong and
identify any reference groups that might influence your consumption behavior

Subcultures are those groups that have values and norms that are distinct from those held by the
majority. 

Generation Y

The hippie is a countercultural movement that rejects the accepted norms of American life. The
movement originated on US college campuses but has spread to other countries, including Canada and
the UK. The name comes from "hip", a term applied to 1950s beats such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack
Kerouac, who were generally considered the forerunners of the hippie. Hippies feel alienated from
middle-class society, which they see as dominated by materialism and repression, and they develop their
own distinctive lifestyle. They favour long hair and casual, often unconventional, dress, sometimes in
“psychedelic” colours. Many males have beards, and both men and women wear sandals and beads.
Hippies commonly take up communal or cooperative living arrangements, and they often adopt
vegetarian diets based on unprocessed foods and practice holistic medicine. Hippies tended to be
dropouts from society, forgoing regular jobs and careers, although some developed small businesses that
catered to other hippies. Reference groups for me as a hippie can be my friends (hippies or other close
people), vegetarians, pacifists.
Hip hop subculture. Hip hop is marked as music of the African-American culture, although today it
continues to flourish and grow in popularity among a variety of ethnic groups. Those in the hip-hop
subculture feel that hip-hop conveys a voice or message of feelings, endless struggles, and the slowly
developing successes of America's black urban youth. The four main defining activities of the subculture
are DJing (DJing), break dancing, graffiti art and rap. Even though much of early hip-hop was centered
around money struggles, crime, drugs, family trials and downtown hardships, many modern hip-hop
artists rap about success, happiness, love, marriage, and so on. The fashion of the hip-hop subculture is
quite recognizable. These are baggy pants, kangaroo sweatshirts with and without hoods, sneakers,
bandanas, baseball caps and caps (clothes, as a rule, are several sizes larger than necessary). Various
accessories are popular - wristbands, belts, glasses, ear piercings. As for the worldview of this or that
representative of the hip-hop subculture, it can vary depending on what this representative is doing. If he
dances, paints graffiti or is fond of any kind of sport (often extreme), he usually does not drink or smoke
and advocates a healthy lifestyle. If this is a rapper (a performer or a listener - it does not matter), then
there are no special ideological principles - he may or may not smoke, he may lead an antisocial lifestyle,
or may be a fighter for justice, but in most cases he will be against racism. Reference groups for rapers
are: famous singers, other rapers (even little known rappers), adherents of the movement Black Lives
Matter.

The characteristics of a new product affect its rate of adoption. Identify the five characteristics that
influence the rate of adoption and describe how each factor will influence the rate of adoption of the
Apple Watch.

Consumers go through five stages in the process of adopting a new product:

Awareness. The consumer becomes aware of the new product but lacks information about it.

Interest. The consumer seeks information about the new product.

Evaluation. The consumer considers whether trying the new product makes sense.

Trial. The consumer tries the new product on a small scale to improve his or her estimate of its value.

Adoption. The consumer decides to make full and regular use of the new product.

In particular, 5 characteristics are especially important in influencing an innovation’s rate of adoption:

Relative Advantage. The relative advantage refers to the degree to which an innovation appears superior
to existing products. Even if Apple is selling one Apple Watch for every 10 iPhones, it’s far and away the
most popular smartwatch around. It’s also indicative of why Apple won’t discuss sales.

Compatibility. Compatibility is the degree to which an innovation fits the values and experiences of
potential consumers. It belongs to the product characteristics that influence the adoption rate because
consumers will only slowly start adopting a product if it is not compatible with their mindset. Aple Watch
contains several apps: Pedometer, Workouts, Sleep, and Activity.

Complexity. The degree to which an innovation is difficult to understand or to use is also one of the
product characteristics that influence the adoption rate. Series 3, the most recent iteration of Apple
Watch, is the most popular edition. A split in adoption between the WiFi and cellular versions of the
watch; cellular was a bit higher on launch, suggesting that version sold better than the WiFi variant at
first, but use has evened out.

Divisibility. It refers to the degree to which an innovation may be tried on a limited basis. Would you buy
an expensive innovative new car without having the opportunity to test it before? Even if all other
product characteristics that influence the adoption rate are favourable, communicability can still slow
down adoption significantly. Communicability is the degree to which the results of using an innovation
can be observed or described to others. According to CNBC, Apple says a whole 70% of Apple Watch
customers are buying their very first model. That means that 30% of Apple Watch customers are actually
upgrading from older models, but Apple hasn’t fully tapped into the upgrade pool yet.