Young Kazakhstan consumers: catch them if you can

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine and evaluate the spending patterns and buying behaviors of two different age groups of young Kazakhstan consumers. In addition, this research seeks to analyze the importance Kazakh parents give to their children's opinion on purchasing different products.Design methodology approach - After a thorough revision of related literature on young consumers, the researchers used two types of questionnaires, and in-depth personal interviews with 400 young Kazakhstan consumers in the 10-14 and 15-18 age groups and 100 Kazakh parents. The collected data were summarized, coded, and controlled by using SPSS 13.0 and Microsoft Excel software packages and analyzed by using frequency distribution.Findings - Sixty-one percent of the 10-14 and 84 percent of the 15-18 age groups of young Kazakhstan consumers receive weekly pocket money of below 250 Kazakh tenge and above 1,000 tenge, respectively, from parents. Related to spending patterns, 78 percent of 10-14 age group children spend 74 percent of their pocket money for entertainment and food as against 50 percent in the 15-18 age groups. The study found that 90 percent of parents in both the age groups took into account the opinions of their children when purchasing different household products and services.Research limitations implications - The city (Almaty) selected for this study is highly developed culturally, socially and economically when compared with the remaining parts of Kazakhstan.Practical implications - The current study sheds light on the buying behavior of young Kazakh consumers along with parents' opinions and provides useful information for the corporate world when targeting and communicating with young people.Originality value - The paper offers insights about the complex patterns of youth attitudes in a former Soviet Socialist country which is changing its nature toward a market oriented economy. This is a pioneer work on the buying behaviors of young Kazakh consumers which is additionally useful to the academic world.