Factors Influencing Consumer Behaviour

Everybody is a consumer. A consumer is a person that purchases goods or services and uses it. Each consumer has their own purchasing behavior. According to Lamb, Hair and McDaniel (2003), consumer behavior represents processes by which a consumer uses to form purchase decisions as well as to use and dispose of purchased goods or services including types of factors that influences purchase decisions and the product used. In general, there are three types of factors influencing consumer behavior in buying a car which are social, personal and psychological (refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1).
The first type of factor influencing consumer behavior in buying a car is social factor. There are three sub-factors in social factor which are reference groups, family, social roles and status. One of the sub-factors of social factor is reference groups. A reference group is a group that will directly or indirectly influences a person’s attitude, aspiration or behavior (Rani, 2014). They may influence an individual about the product or brand during the decision making process. Besides, social interactions can also influence a consumer in buying a car. Malaysia car buyers trust the online information rather than car dealerships. According to a survey, it has been discovered that 89% of the buyers will carry out online research before visiting the car dealership. The most essential sources for Malaysian car buyers are online sources and word of mouth (“Malaysians take less than”, 2013).
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