INFLUENCE OF LIFESTYLE ON THE BUYING BEHAVIOUR OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS IN UNIVERSITIES IN CROSS RIVER STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The undergraduate students in universities in Nigeria are a major and growing market for providers of consumer goods and services in the towns and cities where universities are located. The few empirical studies that have been conducted on this population were focused on the demographic and cultural dimensions whose limitations at explaining and predicting consumer behaviour have been acknowledged by many scholars and researchers. Those studies also did not consider the moderating effect of socio-demographic factors which have been shown to improve the predictability of consumer behavior. This study, therefore, aimed at assessing the relationship between lifestyle and buying behavior among undergraduate students in universities in Cross River State, Nigeria. Lifestyle was measured on the activities, interests and opinion framework. A sample of 323 undergraduate students was drawn from the two universities in Cross River State, using a three-stage sampling technique. Multiple regression analysis was used in testing the hypotheses. The study shows that lifestyle significantly influence buying behaviour of undergraduate students in universities in Cross River State, with interest making the greatest contribution on the impact of lifestyle on buying behaviour. The study also reveals that socio-demographic variables have significant moderating effect on the influence of lifestyle on buying behaviour with interest making the greatest contribution to buying behaviour and gender making the least contribution. The study concluded that lifestyle is a significant predictor of buying behaviour of undergraduate students in Nigeria. It was recommended that universities students should be segmented on the dimension of lifestyle. The study further recommended that marketers and businesses should factor lifestyle in the development of new products and designing of marketing communication strategies.