The Impact of Psychological Influences on Consumer Buying Behavior of SMEs’ Products: A Case Study of the Manufacturing Sector in Zimbabwe

The aim of this study was to determine the impact of psychological influences on the buying pattern of SMEs products in Zimbabwe. This study was motivated by the desire to establish the reason why SMEs products were failing to gain customers acceptance. Furthermore SMEs products have been observed to be occupying minimum shelf space in most of the supermarket in Zimbabwe as compared to foreign manufactured products. Zimbabwe has become an import destination, where almost every country is targeting to supply their products to the Zimbabwean supermarkets. The objectives of this study was to determine the effect of personality on the buying pattern of SMEs products in Zimbabwe, to determine the effect of customer perception on SMEs products and to determine the impact of attitudes on consumer purchasing behaviour of SMEs products. A sample of 100 respondents from customers and policy advocates were considered for this study. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select customers who buy SMEs products while policy makers were purposively sampled. The results revealed that personality greatly affects the purchasing behaviour of SMEs products in Zimbabwe, most of the respondents also revealed their negative perception towards any product from SMEs, while some revealed a negative attitude towards SMEs products as they articulated that they have a strong belief that SMEs are generally custodians of manufacturing poor quality products and due to this reason they choose to do business with big firms. The study concluded that psychological influences have an impact on consumer purchasing behaviour of SMEs products in Zimbabwe.