Essay On Socialization Of Children

The sudden emergence of children market as the most lucrative and formidable one can be traced back to the subtle and sublime socialization of customer happened over a period few decades. The socialization of the customer is considered as one of the most important tool to study the consumer behaviour. (Ward, 1974). The socialization of customer reveals the process of consumers acquiring the relevant skills, knowledge, behaviour, cognition and attitudes necessary to act efficiently in the market as a consumer. This process of socialization of children as customer is totally different from decade to decade as each period of time introduces the new agents of change. Traditionally, the family, parents, peers, neighbours, friends, schools, products

The changing nature of family structures and roles have made children more assertive in their choices of products and services and even some times they indirectly influence the purchasing decisions of their parents. This transformation is not sudden event, but has been happening rapidly since last 45 years coinciding with the expansion of market of products and services for the kids. In India alone, the market potential for kid’s products ranges between Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 15,000 crores. Considering the huge economic potential and ever increasing influence of children on the parental decision making, it makes sense to understand the consumer socialization of the children especially in a young country like India. Hence, in this section an attempt has been made to provide the conceptual framework for the consumer socialization of children and understand the various stages of socialization, transition of children in each of these stages in their cognitive and social skills. The consumer socialization of children would help us to explore the lesser known facets like children knowledge about the products, brands, advertisements, shopping, pricing, decision making process. The theoretical framework of the consumer socialization of children will throw much light on the parental influence strategies in each stages of the