The Role of Social Class in Segmenting Markets

This article in CiteMan talks about social class is closely associated with people’s buying behaviors.  According to the author, social class segmentation involves two basic issues.  The fundamental one is which approach better explains consumer behavior by using social class and income in segmenting markets.   He suggests that many lifestyle items show the significant correlations with the index of social class.   Moreover, social class is the better predictor of consumers’ living patterns in compare to income.   He claims that income is often irrelevant in analyzing markets and explaining consumers’ shopping habits, store preference, and media usage.  In fact, he describes that the radical differences in the spending patterns of three families belonging to different social classes with the same among earning per year.  An upper middle-class family likes to buy houses in a prestige neighborhood, expensive furniture, and clothing from quality stores.  A middle-class family has a better house but not in a fancy neighborhood and buy furniture that is not done by name designers.  A working class family has a small house, but has a larger newer car, more expensive kitchen appliances.  This family usually spends less on clothing and furniture.

This article is relevant to our class because it also illustrates the social class makes impact people’s buying behavior.  In our class, we talk about that the working class often retain their distinctive class values, lifestyles, and tastes even though they have the same buying power as the middle-class.   The working-class women think their primary role as house workers, while middle-class women define themselves as wives.  For example, the working-class women buy a lot of top-of -the- line appliances because they contribute a more cheerful kitchen environment and make their work easier.  They pay more attention to the useful function of  applicances.  In contrast, the middle-class women want the latest appliances to make their escape from the kitchen easily.  They are more concern about the designs of applicances.