Many factors influence purchasing. A consumer's family is one of the most significant factors because a family helps shape an individual's attitudes and behaviors . One way to understand the family's impact on consumer behavior is to identify the decision maker for a purchase. A decision maker for a purchase can be a husband, wife, or even a child, and sometimes decisions are made in collaboration. Often, the decision maker changes based on the type of purchase or the size of the purchase. A new refrigerator, for example, is likely to be a joint decision, while a week's groceries might be selected by a single member of the family.
Family Grocery Shopping
Families are a major influence on shopping patterns and consumer habits.
Influence of Family on Consumer Behavior
Families influence purchases in many ways. At first, the influence of parents is significant because of how parents help their children to develop political and religious beliefs, lifestyle choices, and consumer preferences. Most people are who they are because of their parents. A spouse and children, however, can exert an even more significant force on a consumer's purchases. Interaction between spouses and the number and ages of children play a particularly powerful role on buying behaviors. These family influences affect how consumers look at purchases more directly than most other social influences on consumer purchasing.
Family Life Cycle
Another aspect of understanding the impact of families on buying behavior is the family life cycle. Most, though certainly not all, individuals and families pass through an orderly sequence of life stages that can be used to understand their purchasing patterns. A typical adult starts in the bachelor stage of being young and single and then moves to being part of a married couple without children. Then the married couple transition to Full Nest stages, where the family has dependent children living at home. Once the children leave, the family enters the Empty Nest Stage, which is typically where older married couples (working or retired) no longer have dependent children living with them. Finally, the individual reaches the "solitary survivor" stage of being an older single person. Consumer behavior and purchasing is different in each of these stages. Understanding the family life cycle is beneficial for marketers because it helps in defining target customers.