hi there as part of our study of the external environment a level business students need to be aware of some of the key changes in the ways that consumers live their lives and how they buy products and services so let's just spend a few minutes thinking about how as part of monitoring and responding to changes in the external environment businesses need to be aware of changes in consumer lifestyles and the so-called buying behavior what i've done is just very quickly added together or put down five changes significant changes in consumer lifestyles and a couple of
changes in buying behavior as we go through these it might be worth pausing the video just to add these details to your notes let's start with consumer lifestyle the first change there on the screen is the growth in the number of single person households demographic change data released in 2019 showed that the number of people in the uk living alone exceeded 8 million people for the first time and in terms of percentage growth the rise in single-person households people living on their own actually outstripped the growth in the overall population so roughly now around about
15 percent or one in eight of the uk uk's adult population live on their own which obviously has implications for the goods and the services that they buy number two there on the right hand side is the increasing demand for farmers as consumers for convenience products and services uh i'm sure you're the same as i am increasingly we now expect to lead an on-demand lifestyle fueled by our love of technology because young young consumers in particular have grown up with media and services that are available at the push of a button anytime anyplace usually via
a smart device of some sort so again a significant change this demand for convenience on demand of products and services next to uh what i've called the connected and mobile consumer and all this really means is as we mentioned before though with convenience that day-to-day life is now all about being connected we never stray from our phones from your online purchases to mobile payments social media interactions streaming services and the rest on the right hand there perhaps as a consequence of being always on and always connected i think you could also argue that consumers are
increasingly overloaded with information in some respects of course that's good news that this wide availability of information about products and services and prices and choice but of course information overload is a big issue for increasing numbers of consumers and perhaps as a consequence of this wide availability of information many of us are becoming more suspicious of the content we come across and we're increasingly trying to filter out the stuff that we can trust can we trust product reviews consumer reviews what information can we trust which brands can we trust has significant implications for businesses last
one on consumer lifestyles if you want a fifth example of a change i would argue that as consumers i think we're now exhibiting greater social conscience more and more of us consider doing good for society as being as being a worthy activity than perhaps than perhaps just buying designer goods you know we're increasingly aware of of of where our products come from who we buy from how they're made and more and more of us perhaps you certainly may uh have more of an eye to that the impact of the products and services that we buy
on the world there we go there's a five changes in consumer lifestyle i mentioned buying behavior this is yeah how we buy where we buy a couple of changes we've mentioned one in passing as consumers we're better informed you know information overload sure but digital technology has made it really easy now for consumers to obtain the information they want they need before buying to compare so for example the likes of the use of price comparison services customer reviews search engines they've transformed the buying process and similarly on the right hand side there this links to
the marketing mix a wider choice of channels distribution channels and in particular this concept of multi-channel distribution or omni-channel distribution multi-channel distribution basically has widened consumer choice we're we are as as customers as consumers now very much in control of where and how we buy um it's estimated that over 80 percent of consumers now research a product or services on their phones before deciding whether to buy it and then they can decide to buy it online or in store or in some other way so significant impact on the the uh the decisions that businesses need
to make as to which distribution channels they use there we go hopefully that's useful it's a bit of a whistle stop tour there but hopefully useful identifying some key changes in consumer lifestyle and buying behavior you
