For marketers, understanding the buying behaviour of consumers is vital to gaining a better understanding of the factors that influence consumer decisions. Did you know consumer purchasing decisions are heavily influenced by environmental factors?

To understand how the purchase environment impacts consumer behaviour, let’s first understand what consumer behaviour is. An emerging marketing discipline, the concept of consumer behaviour, emerged in the 1940s and 1950s. It studies consumers and their methods of selecting, consuming, and disposing of products and services. Consumer behaviour also studies how consumers’ emotional, mental, and behavioural responses can influence their purchase behaviour.

Based on the above paragraph, consumer behaviour can be visualised as a set of numbers or data representing a very rational journey along the so-called purchase funnel, from searching for a product or service to buying that product or service.

However, studies have shown that human nature is not entirely rational, and consumer behaviour is therefore not easy to forecast. A customer will buy a product or service as an outcome of many aspects of a consumer, such as motivation, desire, and purchase triggers.

Aspects of consumer behaviour

Consumer behaviour aspects are the qualities of a customer that influence their response to a purchase cue or stimulus. This response determines the consumer’s decision to buy or not to buy. The following are six key aspects of consumer behaviour that marketers should be aware of:

1. Consumers’ motivations, desires, and other purchase triggers can change over time, making it a dynamic process.
2. It can be applied to products, services, activities, or ideas.
3. It involves interactions between multiple people.
4. It involves more than buying – it also involves using and disposing of. All these actions can influence future buyer behaviour,
5. It involves exchanges between people – we all provide value in return for something of equal or more value.
6. It involves many decisions in the entire purchase process.

External influences on consumer behaviour

A customer’s purchase decisions are greatly influenced by various external influences or factors, which can affect their rational decision-making ability. You will understand if you have ever been to an Apple or Nike store. The store layouts, product presentations and visual merchandising are designed to draw and retain customers in the store and get them to purchase and sometimes purchase more than what they intended.

Apple Store in Istanbul, Turkey

The way customers engage with these external influences (or “environmental stimuli”) has a powerful impact on their purchase patterns. Let us look at some of the crucial external influences on consumer behaviour:

1. The physical environment
   1. Store locations, designs and layouts are great tools to influence consumer behaviour.
   2. Internal environments in stores can also influence customers to buy more than they intended.
   3. Factors outside the control of companies – such as weather – can also play a role in influencing consumer behaviour.
2. The social environment
   1. Social situations push a customer into a purchase decision by playing on their emotions, ego, or sense of self-worth.
   2. There are times when people are forced to purchase because they don’t want to be seen as against social norms.
   3. These situations affect the consumption of goods and services to a great extent.
3. The time factor
   1. Time pressure can change a customer’s purchase decision, especially at the point of purchase.
   2. Concepts such as “Just In Time deliveries” and “24×7 stores” have been designed to cater to time-starved consumers.
   3. The influence of time can also impact the reason for the purchase.
      
4. The mood factor
   1. It has been conclusively proved that the external environment has a direct and paramount influence on our moods.
   2. Our moods, in turn, have a direct and decisive influence on our purchase decisions.
   3. A happy or not-so-happy mood can lead customers to buy more or less than they intended.
      
5. The season factor
   1. The seasonal factor is more of a “need state” than a weather situation.
   2. People tend to be more optimistic at the start of a new year and during spring or summer.
   3. People also tend to buy more during festival or holiday periods.

Marketers consider all these factors when designing their brands’ purchase environment to influence consumer behaviour. The purchase environment impacts consumer behaviour through actions that shape the business’s and its customers’ relationship.

Marketers also use the “stimulus–organism–response (S-O-R) framework” to push consumers to make positive or favourable purchase decisions. The stimulus–organism–response framework uses the consumer’s emotional state to trigger impulsive purchase decisions. The flow is in the form of retail environment characteristics. This results in a positive emotional response from the consumer, leading to impulsive purchasing.

Senses overstimulated by a positive, exciting, and stimulating environment increase the chance of impulse buying. This makes consumers lose the ability to control their buying impulses. In turn, this increases the chances of impulse purchases.

It is important to note that overstimulation caused in a crowded space can have negative associations and have the opposite effect on purchase behaviour. It can lead to a reduction in impulse purchases. Furthermore, it can lead to a situation where the consumer prefers not to go to that retail space or store.

1. Ambient factors: the features of the store such as lighting, music, access to the store, location, and other factors
2. Design elements: the architecture, colour, and layout of the store
3. The social factor: the number of customers in the store at any given time, the attitude and appearance of the store staff
4. Product displays: while window shopping does not directly benefit a company’s bottom line, an attractive product displays can have a significant influence on consumer behaviour and can lead to an arousal state which promotes impulse buying

Nike Store in Dubai, UAE

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Image reference: https://www.nike.com/ae/retail/s/nike-mirdiff-city-centre

Finally, the purchase environment must consider the 4 Ps of marketing:

1. Product: The characteristics, appearance, and packaging of the product
2. Price: The product pricing (minimum-maximum range) and the price sensitivity of the consumers
3. Promotion: This covers all the advertising and communication required to drive the customers into the store
4. Place: The channels used by the product, the distribution process, and the actual store all have a role to play in influencing consumer behaviour.

Conclusion

It is essential to keep in mind that a large number of external factors influence consumers. One of the most important influences on consumer behaviour is the environment in which they purchase goods. The sensory stimulation created by a store environment greatly influences consumer behaviour, especially impulse buying.