Introduction
Markets today are more complex than it was in the past so much so that, marketers no longer understand consumers even as they go about with their daily experience of selling to them. This is partly as result of the growth in the size of firms and markets that leaves marketing decision makers to lost direct contact with their customers. In a bit to gain the lost glory, most marketers are spending more money than ever to study consumers, trying to learn more about consumer behaviour through consumer marketing research.
Volkswagen that started operation in 1937 as “Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung des Deutschen Volkswagens mbH” has grown today to be a world class brand cars with some 13 cars models today on the market and represented in all the five continents.
Consumer Behaviour can be said to be the manner in which people interact with products and their marketing environment. This interaction is achieved by investigating how they purchase products (say a new car), the consumption of services (banks for example), or the disposal of goods (online selling).
Consumer behaviour is influenced by four major personal factors; cultural, social, personal, and psychological characteristics. The mix of these four factors that influence consumer behaviour have made the consumer patterns more complex for marketers (Michael, 2007).
Cultural factors
Cultural factors exerted the broadest and deepest influence on consumer behaviour pattern. It is vital for the marketer to understand the roles played by the buyer’s culture, subculture, and social class. Cultural background has in most cases been identified as being at the heart of some consumer’s basic cause of and behaviour. The cultural aspect is most often influenced by the society in which we grow since we most often turn to learn some basic values, perceptions, wants, and behaviours from the family, peers, and other important institutions. The situation is further made worst by the fact that...