A Research on the effect of five-six years old children upon the family purchasing behaviour

SUMMARY Family is an important market segment for marketing managers. The social change and changing family structure as a consequence, results in children taking an important role in family purchasing decisions. Thus understanding of this role of children is very important for developing efficient and effective strategies for families. Starting from this point, the subject of the study is to determine the effect of five - six years old children of nucleous families coming from higher social - economical level, who go private nursery, upon the family purchasing decisions. It concerns with the investigation of the child's effect upon purchasing decisions, taken the number of children in the family, occupation of the mother, related products criterias and the structure the mother - child interaction (Mother child centeredness) into account. Research data is gathered from 257 mothers whose children are attending to twelve private nursery schools in Ankara, Çankaya district. According to the results of the research, the variables of mother's occupation, gender of the children and the number of the children in the family do not have a significant effect or determinant role in family's purchasing behavior. On the other hand, while the level of family's child centeredness is effective in family purchasing behavior in the group of high- risk product used by all the family, it is not in a determinate position in low- risk products that the child and the whole family use. In addition, child's effect on family's purchasing decision differs according to the group of product. The group of products which the child has the highest effect upon the purchasing decisions are low-risk products used by the whole family. The group of products which the child has the lowest degree of influence upon the purchasing decisions of the family on the other hand are those high-risk products used by the whole family. This group of products is followed by that used by the children themselves. The attitude of the mother concerning with the consumer status of the child has determinate effect upon the purchase of vuthe high-risk products used by the whole family. The mother allows the child to effect the purchasing decisions of the family as long as she thinks that the child is conscious and knowledgeable enough as a consumer. Keywords: Child as a consumer, consumer behaviour, degree of child centeredness. Vlll