Distribution and Pricing

Consumer Purchase Decision

Orm Jenkins Jr

BA181

September 04, 2013

Shaun Manzano, MBA

Consumer Purchase Decision

The actions a consumer takes in purchasing and using products and services, including the mental and social processes that precede and follow these actions. The behavioral sciences help answer questions such as: Why consumers choose one product or brand over another, how they make these choices, and how companies use this knowledge to provide value to consumers. There are five important steps that a consumer makes before they decide upon purchasing a product or using a service.

The decision making starts with Problem Recognition. So we ask the question, why do people want to buy things? It’s because there is a problem, and the consumer is looking for the solution to their problem. This is where the marker can do several things to make their product or service more enticing to the consumer. If the problem is inactive, your job as a marketer is to make that problem active. Steve Jobs and the marketing of the iPhone is a great example. He made sure the iPhone was something that everyone needed to have, but really didn’t need it.

The information search is the part of the consumer’s decision making process is where they are looking for more information. They search for this either internally or externally. What’s the difference between the two? Internal search is what someone already knows, such as pre-existing knowledge of the product or from the consumer’s memory. An external search is as simple as the consumer going on Google to look for a product review or perhaps even video demonstrations on YouTube.

The next part of the decision making process is evaluation of alternatives. During this process the consumer will ask, what are some other options that are available? A consumer will consider, the effectiveness and cost of a product or service. For example, when looking for a vehicle most people will tend to look at other choices. The...