The Study Of Social Stratification And Consumption Behaviors Of Lanzhou Urban Citizens

Five years ago, Dr. Li Peilin, a famous sociologist, raised some methods of consumption stratification. Many other theoretical and empirical studies pay much attention to study the relationship between consumption behaviors and social stratification. Nowadays, more and more studies from home and abroad reveal that under the influence of consumerism the consumption behaviors among different social strata tend to be the same, though people of various strata have different consuming partialities and habits. This study contributes to explore the consumption behaviors and mind of Lanzhou urban consumers. And it aims to analyze the relationship between consumption behaviors and consumers' personal characteristics. I employed in my study diversified methods including descriptive statistics, ANOVA, MANOVA, factor analysis, clustering and correspondence analysis.The result of factor analysis generated five factors, respectively named "Self-fulfillment consumption ", "Socialization consumption", "Hedonic consumption "," Symbolic consumption" and "Modesty consumption". Clustering analysis accordingly revealed four different clusters, including cluster of "hedonic pursuit", cluster of "modesty consumers", cluster of " self-enjoyers " and cluster of "brand tasters". The result of MANOVA demonstrated that these four clusters are significantly different in consumption values. In addition, the author analyzed the relationship between consumption values factors and demographic statistics variables, thus providing a management implication for the practitioners in marketing.