Who constitutes the market? Occupants
What does the market buy? Objects
Why does the market buy? Objectives
Who participates in buying? Organizations
How does the market buy? Operations
When does the market buy? Occasions
Where does the market buy? Outlets Buyer’s needs, characteristics and decision making process interact with the stimuli created by the environment and marketers and buying decisions are made by the buyers. Hence marketers have to understand what happens in the buyer’s consciousness between the arrival of outside stimuli and the buyer’s purchase decision. They must answer two questions: · How do the buyer’s characteristics – socio-cultural (sociological), personal, and psychological influence buying behavior?
· How does the buyer make purchasing decisions? Socio-cultural (sociological), Personal, and
Psychological Characteristics Various sociological factors of importance Cultural Factors
They have the broadest and deepest influence.
Culture
Culture is different for different societies. In the modern days, there are more common elements. Culture is the most fundamental determinant of a person’s wants and behavior. Subculture
Culture of a society is not uniform across all groups in the society. There can be subcultures with certain elements differing from other groups’ cultural elements. Many subculture elements make up important market segments. In a country like USA, that allows people from various countries to come and settle in it, subcultures arise due to the original nationality, religion, racial group