Question

A customer is in a retail jewelry store, considering the purchase of a new diamond engagement ring. what are 4 possible internal or external factors that could influence their purchase decision and/or process? focus on psychological, socio-cultural, or situational influences specifically. briefly explain each of the 4 factors you chose, with a specific example or scenario to illustrate each one.

Answer 1

Before we proceed to the answer, we first need to understand that Buying a diamond ring is a non occuring situation because a diamond ring is not a consumer good. Thus, many factors could influence the buying decision for that ring:

1. Economical Factors: Lets consider an example of a middle income family person that went into the retail store to buy a diamond ring. His income isn't much that he could buy a ring which is having a price of $10,000. Will he buy the ring? Possibly no, because the price is out of his range of income. Economical factors like economy, price, income, demand and supply affects the consumer buying decision for any good.

2. Social Factors: Again considering the factor of social influences, let's take an example of a group of friends that have gone to the retail shop to buy a diamond ring. If out of 4 friends, 3 have bought the diamong rings they have liked and 1 doesn't want to buy a one, she would still feel a social pressure of buying that ring because of peer pressure that other friends have bought the ring and why shouldn't she buy a one. Social factors also play an important role for deciding the buying decision.  

3. Psychological Factors: Physiological Factors like the perception, likes and dislikes and the moods of people also affect the buying decision. For example the lady who went to buy the diamond ring doesn't like the design of the ring and the shape of the ring thus wouldn't buy because of the psychological factor.

4. Situational Factors: At last, situational factor like the external situations also play a role in the buying decision. For example, a person who is about to marry soon, is going to a store to buy a ring would buy it anyhow because a situation is implying on him that he has to buy the ring for a situation because of a compulsion situation factor.