Factors affecting the need of the Family, Family life cycle stage and size
Even though it’s the family as a whole that buys things like appliances, toys, and furniture, this doesn’t mean that all families are shopping at the same time or at any time. This means that, in addition to how decisions are made in the family, the family life cycle also affects consumer behaviour and helps us understand how people act when they buy things.
Over the course of a person’s life, the way they buy and use goods and services changes. As babies, they eat baby food for the first few years, most kinds of food as they grow up, and special diets as they get older. The stage of a family’s life cycle and the age of a person can also affect their tastes and preferences when it comes to clothes, cars, ideas for fun, etc.
Some writers, such as Gail Sheehy in his paper “Predictable Crises in Adult Life” and Roger Gould in his book “Transformation,” have identified certain psychological life cycle stages that adults go through as they grow up. This means that changing interests in what people buy can also be linked to these adult transitions.
So, marketers often try to figure out who their target markets are based on the stages of a family’s life and then make plans for the right products and marketing. Also, they have to pay attention to the changing consumer interests that may come with these adult passages and make sure that their marketing plans reflect these changes.
Marketers need to know about the life cycle of a household or family in order to divide the market into different parts. In 1966, William Wells and George Gubar suggested that the family life cycle has eight stages.
The following life cycle stages are typical of families:
- The bachelor stage: young, single person underage of 35 years. Incomes are generally low since they have started careers, but they may have few financial burdens and sufficient discretionary income.
- Newly married: young couples, no children. If both spores are employed, they will have high level of discretionary income.
- Full nest 1: young married couples with youngest child under 6 years of age. There would be greater squeezes on income because of increased on childcare. However, if they are members of a joint family, the level of discretionary income is likely to be high.
- Full nest 2: young married couples with children from 6 years to 12 years of age. Better financial position because income of both parents rising. Children spend more hours outside their parents’ influence.
- Full nest 3: older married couples with dependent teenage children living at home. Financial position of family continues to improve. There are increasing costs of college education for children.
- Empty nest 1: older married couples with no children living with them, parents still employed. Reduced expenses result in greater savings and highest discretionary income.
- Empty nest 2: older married couples with no children living with them and parents retired. Drop in income and couple relies on savings and fixed income from retirement benefits.
- Solitary survivor 1: older single persons with low income and increasing medical needs.
Family decision making and consumption-related roles
Family decision-making occurs when two or more family members participate directly or indirectly in the decision-making process. Such family options vary greatly from individual choices. When buying a bicycle for a youngster, for instance, some pertinent questions to ask yourself include: Who sees the need for bicycles? How are brands chosen? What function does the worried kid play?
Early in the family life cycle, when both partners are relatively inexperienced, joint choices are more likely to be made. They often assign purchase decision-making responsibility to one another after acquiring expertise.
Key family consumption roles
For example, a family member may be walking down the cookie aisle at a local supermarket when she picks out an interesting new fat-free cookie. Her selection does not directly involve the influence of other family members. She is the decider, the buyer and, in a sense, the gatekeeper, however, she may not be the sole consumer. Products may be consumed by a single family member, consumed or used directly by two or more family members, or consumed indirectly by the entire family.
Dynamics of husband-wife decision making
Marketers are interested in the relative amount of influence that a husband and a wife have when it comes to family consumption choices. The relative influence of husbands and wives can be classified as: husband dominated, wife dominated, joint, and autonomic.
The product and service category affects how much a husband and wife may influence a given customer choice. For instance, in the 1950s, the choice to buy a new car was largely influenced by the husband, although decisions about the family’s diet and finances were more often made by the wife. Even now, fifty years later, spouses still often control the purchase of the family’s primary vehicle. However, in other settings or contexts, female vehicle purchasers are a market niche that many automakers are now paying a lot of attention to in terms of marketing. Additionally, during the last ten years, there has been a general tendency toward the female head of the family making financial choices.
Making decisions as a husband or wife also seems to be influenced by culture. There were much less “shared” choices and more “husband dominated” decisions for numerous household purchases in the People’s Republic of China than there were in the United States, according to research comparing husband-wife decision making patterns in both countries. The study found that married couples were more likely than rural couples to participate equally in purchasing choices in a big metropolis like Beijing when the comparison was restricted to urban and rural Chinese homes.
In another recent cross-culture study, husband-wife decision making was studied among three groups: Asian Indians living in India, Asian Indians living in the United States, and American nationals. Results show a decrease in husband decisions and an increase in wife dominated decisions, going from Asian Indians in India to Asian Indians in the United States, to American nationals. This pattern seems to indicate the impact of assimilation on decision making.