Cultural Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior

Definition: The Cultural Factors are the factors that an individual learns at a very early stage of life due to socialization within the family and other key institutions, such as the set of values, preferences, behavior patterns, and perceptions are learned as the individual grows.

Some of the important cultural factors are:

1. Culture: The culture refers to the beliefs, customs, rituals and practice that a particular group of people follows. As a child grows, he inculcates the buying and decision-making patterns through his family and the key institutions. The culture varies from region to region and even from country to country. Such as the sale of “sarees” and “Lungis” is more in South than the North India. Therefore, the marketer should carefully study all the different cultures and frame the marketing strategies accordingly.
2. Subculture: The culture can be further divided into subculture wherein the people are classified more specifically on the basis of their shared customs and beliefs, including religions, geographic regions, nationalities, etc. The different sub-cultures forms several market segments whose needs can be carefully studied by the marketer, and the strategic marketing decisions can be taken accordingly. Such as the needs of the people living in metro cities and the ones living in B-grade cities must be identified before the launch of the marketing campaign.
3. Social Class: The social class to which an individual belongs influences the buying decision. Generally, the people belonging to the same class are said to be sharing the similar interest, value and the behavior. Our society is classified into three social classes upper class, middle class, and the lower class. The consumers belonging to these classes possess different buying behaviors. Such as an individual belonging to the upper class buy those products or services that advocate his status while the lower class people buy those products which satisfy their basic needs.

These are some of the cultural factors that influence the individual buying behavior due to his membership in the group where different customs, practices, beliefs, and rituals are followed.