For decades people from all over the world, representing a group of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, have viewed America as ideals of hope and opportunity. That arrival of immigrants forever changed the culture of this country and the United States was often referred to as a country with numerous backgrounds. Such a perspective of cultural diversity implies that upon entering the United States, the cultural values and beliefs of people from different cultures are somehow blended into one cultural value system. According to businessdictionary.com, consumer behavior is the process by which individuals search for, select, purchase, use, and dispose of goods and services, in satisfaction of their needs and wants. People with different ethnicity backgrounds tend to buy things a little bit differently than others. Trying to figure out what they want, how they want and where they want is what marketers sometimes have difficulties deciding. The different ethnicities in the U.S. that would be covered include: Caucasian Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and Indians. “The U.S. population is highly ethnically and racially diverse. As of the 2010 Census, the U.S. population was 63.7% White, 12.2% African American and 16.3% Hispanic” (Akcay 2012). Going into detail on how these ethnicities make their purchase decision and comparing them would be the main purpose of this research.
Why do people buy the things that they buy, is one question that many marketers try to figure out? “Ethnicity involves the social construction of origin as the basis for determining the community or collective and may be based upon a combination of history, territory, culture or physiognomic grounds” (Anthias 1992). There are so many people that are in these markets it is difficult to concentrate on just one type of ethnicity. There are things that some cultures don’t really need. For