“Starbucks Psychological Factors

“Starbucks’ Target Markets and Their Needs”

There are several psychological factors that have the most influence on consumers purchasing products/services. Businesses try to influences the consumer’s behavior with things they can control like the layout of the store, music, grouping and availability of products, pricing, and advertising. This doesn’t make it any different for Starbucks. They have done a good job at this, starting with the location of the stores. Starbucks has many locations just miles apart to make it more convenient for the consumer. Starbucks has also located themselves in grocery stores and airports; pretty much anywhere there is foot traffic.

There are personality factors, the “Big Five” that psychologists discuss frequently. Openness or how open you are to new experiences, conscientiousness or how diligent you are, extraversion or how outgoing or shy you are, agreeableness or how easy you are to get along with, and neuroticism or how prone you are to negative mental states (Schmitz, 2012).

Starbucks primary target market is men and women aged 25 to 40. They also have a range of consumers, like young adults from 18 to 24 which total 40 percent of Starbucks’ sales. Kids and teens and age 13 to 17 account for just 2 percent of Starbucks’ sales. Starbucks appeals to his adults consumers through hip, contemporary design with advertising and décor. The stores that are catered more for young adults around college campus are structured for hanging out, study, writing term papers and to meet people. It focuses on social networking, introducing technology as soon as it comes available. Most of the kids and teens come with their parents and both, parent and child leave with cup in hand. Starbucks doesn’t cater to kids because of the high calorie and caffeine content but the products are kid-friendly, and offer child size beverages (O’Farrell, 2015).

Why do people still go to Starbucks when they can get other coffees, for half the price? Starbucks...