What Factors Influence Buyer Behavior in Asia?

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How Do Culture, Personality, and Experience Influence Buyer Behavior in Asia?

Asia accounts for a large portion of the world economy and population. Any company seeking success in the Asian market needs to be aware of the factors that influence buyer behavior, the can affect communication styles, brand loyalty, perceptions of products offered, and effective advertising methods ⁽³⁾. How Do Culture, Personality, and Experience Influence Buyer Behavior in Asia?

Culture

Culture is a shared experience that includes a wide variety of factors that inﬂuence the individual and shape society. Cultural aspects include knowledge, beliefs, values, and customs ⁽¹⁾. Cultures change over time, however, their central values are durable enough to be handed down from generation to generation and are an integral part of the consumer.

Cultural prohibitions against consuming products such as alcohol or meat, or cultural preferences for clothing styles and fashion, make it easy for companies to understand buying patterns. Cultural behaviors, such as household size or the role of women in managing households, also influence who buys certain products or what size ⁽²⁾.

Culture strongly influences buyer behavior in Asia, as it plays a significant role in determining how and why they make purchases. For example, the Asian cultural emphasis on saving face may push even lower-income consumers to make luxury brand purchases.

Personality

Personality is the reﬂection of subtle individual differences between people. It is a powerful concept because it allows for categorizing buyers into various groups based on one or more personality traits.

Even though marketers cannot alter their personalities, being aware of which personality characteristics impact speciﬁc consumer reactions and responses can help them make informed attempts to play on those essential traits deep-rooted in a chosen group of consumers to inﬂuence their decisions ⁽⁴⁾.

Asians tend to be collectivistic, interdependent, and relational compared to their Western counterparts. Thus they are more likely to value relationships with others and view themselves as embedded in a larger social network ⁽⁴⁾.

Experience

A person’s perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and values can substantially influence their experience and involvement with products. A consumer‘s social network has a strong influence on the level of involvement with many products because individuals tend to rely on friends and family’s opinions and advice ⁽³⁾. In Asia, consumers tend to live in extended families, and buyer behavior is mostly a family activity. Thus, buying decisions (impulse or otherwise) tend to be influenced by parents, spouses, or relatives.

Following references were used to write this article – How Do Culture, Personality, and Experience Influence Buyer Behavior in Asia

Luo, Y. (2009). Analysis of Culture and Buyer Behavior in Chinese Market. Asian Culture and History, 1(1), 25. (URL)
Nayeem, T. (2012). Cultural Influences on Consumer Behaviour. International Journal of Business and Management, 7(21), 78–84. (URL)
Schütte, H., & Ciarlante, D. (1998). Consumer Behavior in Asia (0 ed.). NYU Press.
Young-Won Ha. (2015). The Psychology of Asian Consumers: What We Know and What We Don’t. Academy of Asian Business Review, 1(1), 1–16. (URL)

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