Summary

Consumers’ purchase decisions are influenced by external factors like different types of information and social relations.

Sources of information can be classified according to whether it’s created by marketing activities, and the way it’s delivered. The two aspects determine its levels of interactive communication and credibility.

Social relations that affect consumer behaviors are reference group, brand community and key opinion leaders. A reference group is any individual or group in reality or imagination perceived as having significant relevance upon a person’s evaluations, aspirations, or behavior.There are primary groups and secondary groups,depending on whether the consumer has a direct personal relationship with them. Reference groups exert informational, utilitarian and value expressive influences on its group members.Reference groups impose strong power on the brands an individual chooses for the products used in public like cars and clothing. For daily necessities consumed in private settings like toilet paper, the influence of groups on the brands chosen is minimal.

Brand community consists of a group of consumers whose social relationships are based on usage of or interest in a brand or a product. An Opinion Leader is a person who gives advice and information regarding a certain product or service,and can frequently influence others’ attitudes and behavior in informal communications. The powers they have on their followers are expert power,knowledge power, credibility power, reference power and social power.

Word-of-mouth (WOM) is information about products and services created and delivered by individuals to others. The three dimensions that determine consumers’ engagement in digital WOM in online social networks are connection strength, similarity, and source credibility.Consumers are more likely to seek WOM in categories they are not familiar with. For marketers, WOM serves as the reinforcement of advertising in this era of social media popularization. It’s of fundamental importance for marketers to keep track of the sources of negative WOM and adopt positive attitudes when dealing with the situation.

Family can be defined as a group of individuals living together who are related by marriage, blood, or adoption. A broader term might be household, which refers to one person living by himself/herself, or a group of individuals living together in a common dwelling, whether they are related or not. At different phases of the family life cycle, consumers as family units have different buying preferences and consumption patterns. It is necessary for marketers to have a general understanding of the connections between features of each family life stage and corresponding purchase decision-making processes.

There are different situations when it comes to family decision-making process, resulting in various types of decision-making patterns.Marketers should take into consideration household purchase situations and household decision roles altogether. Since the husband and the wife are the major income sources and are both relatively strong and wise among all family members, there are four major types of family decision-making: wife dominant,husband dominant, joint, and separate. Factors determining purchasing roles include the product feature, the social class, the family life cycle, and the family role allocation. WXdTUjYgbNkk5vXl7TkcKgWPa1lW+Nv8mLfUdWeECZS56qu3/vNIYwTtCNZLB2qA