A little backstory
I was born in Virginia, and this has been my third time living in the state. Growing up I moved every few years, and moved to Europe for the first time when I was very young and lived there for three years. I moved back to the States to complete elementary school in North Carolina before moving back to Virginia for the second time, completing middle school in Prince George County. At the start of high school, I moved to Vicenza Italy, and got to experience its beauty for five years. Living abroad helped nurse my passion for art history and fashion, pushing me to pursue them in my academic and personal journey. Once I graduate I hope to continue my pursuit of fashion and begin my career in the fashion industry. I have many interests in the fashion industry that I was able to experience due to studying merchandising and hope that I can find my footing in the industry after graduation.
The main idea of the customer framework is based on internal and external factors. Many things internal things influence people such as our needs, motivations, perceptions, and personalities. Our needs come from services that are required for survival, motivations come from the things that compel us to be put into action. We all perceive things differently therefore all have our own opinions on a company or product. Lastly, for internal factors, our personalities have a large impact on how we react to environments. As for external influences, there is our culture, reference groups, marketing, market factors, and technology. To start out we have culture, which is created by shared environmental, and social factors such as knowledge, beliefs, laws, morals, costumes, values, social norms, language, religion, food, and social habits. Culture is seen as the most impactful external factor on a customer's behavior because it surrounds and affects them so prominently. Reference groups are groups that individuals are associated with and used for comparison, influence, and group norms; mainly used to evaluate opinions, values, etc.. Marketing surrounds us in our daily lives and is practically everywhere we look, it focuses on products, price, promotion, and place. Market factors on the other hand are economic, health, and political based that influence us daily. Technology is another factor that surrounds us regularly and has become the most used marketplace and has an impact on consumer behavior.
The main influence I had when considering VCU was an external factor, mostly being a reference group. One of my friends who lived in Richmond at the time knew I would be transferring colleges, and she told me that she thought I would enjoy VCU because of its artsy environment. Location was another factor as it made some sense when looking into finishing my four years by being close enough to home and having exciting majors to choose from. My motivations also influenced my decision in that my goal originally was to get a degree in Merchandising to become a better business owner for my small clothing brand. I also felt compelled to attend VCU because I have the amazing chance to use my GI Bill from my Dad and have been able to get my education paid for and that was something that made college a need more than a personal motivation.