Unit V

Consumer Buying Decision Processes

• Pre-purchase Process: Information Processing.
• Purchase Processes: Situational Influences, Consumer Decision Rules.
• Post Purchase Processes: Framework, Dissonance Satisfaction
/Dissatisfaction.
• Purchase Decision
The Buying Decision Process
• The basic psychological processes play an important
role in understanding how consumers actually make
their buying decisions.
• Marketers must understand every facet of consumer
behavior.
Understanding Consumer Behavior
• Who buys our product or service?
• Who makes the decision to buy the product?
• Who influences the decision to buy the product?
• How is the purchase decision made? Who assumes what role?
• What does the customer buy? What needs must be satisfied?
• Why do customer buy a particular brand?
• Where do they go or look to buy the product or service?
• When do they buy? Any seasonality factors?
• How is our product perceived by customers?
• What are customers’ attitudes toward our product?
• What social factors might influence the purchase decision?
• Do customers’ lifestyles influence their decisions?
• How do personal or demographic factors influence the purchase
decision?
Figure 6.4 Consumer Buying Process

Problem Recognition

Information Search

Evaluation

Purchase Decision

Postpurchase
Behavior
 Problem Recognition
• The buying process starts when the buyer recognizes a
problem or need.
• The need can be triggered by internal or external stimuli.
• Marketers need to identify the circumstances that trigger a
particular need by gathering information from a number of
consumers.
• They can then develop marketing strategies that trigger
consumer interest. This is particularly important with
discretionary purchases such as luxury goods, vacation
packages and entertainment options.
• Consumer motivation may need to be increased so that a
potential purchase is even given serious consideration.
 Information Search
• An aroused consumer will be inclined to search for
more information.
• We can distinguish between two level of arousal. The
milder search state is called heightened attention. At
this level a person simply becomes more receptive to
information about a product.
• At the next level, the person may enter an active
information search: looking for reading material,
phoning friends, going online, and visiting stores to
learn about the product.
Sources of Information

Personal Commercial

Public Experiential
 Information Sources
• Personal:
Family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances.
• Commercial:
Advertising, Salespersons, Dealers, Packaging, Displays, Web
Sites, Mobile Apps, SMS, Emails, Social Media, etc.
• Public:
Mass media, Consumer-rating organizations
• Experiential:
Handling, examining, using the product
Figure 6.5 Successive Sets Involved in
Consumer Decision Making
Evaluation of Alternatives
• How does the consumer process competitive brand
information and make a final value judgment?
• No single process is used by all consumers or by
one consumer in all buying situations.
• There are several processes, the most current
models of which see the process as cognitively
oriented.
• That is, they see the consumer as forming
judgments largely on conscious and rational basis.
Evaluation of Alternatives
• Some basic concepts will help us understand
consumer evaluation processes:
1. The consumer is trying to satisfy a need.
2. The consumer is looking for certain benefits from
the product solution.
3. The consumer sees each product as a bundle of
attributes with varying abilities for delivering the
benefits sought to satisfy this need.
The attributes of interest to buyers vary by
product.
Evaluation of Alternatives
• The attributes of interest to buyers vary by
product.
• Cameras: Picture sharpness, camera speeds,
camera size, price
• Hotels: Location, cleanliness, atmosphere, price
• Mobile Handsets:
• Laptops:
• Motorbikes:
Table 6.8 Sales and Product
Life Cycle
Purchase Decisions
• In the evaluation stage, the consumer forms
preferences among the brands in the choice set.
• The consumer may also form an intension to buy
the most preferred brand.
• In executing a purchase intension, the consumer
may make up to five sub-decisions:
i. Brand (brand A)
ii. Dealer (dealer 3)
iii. Quantity (one laptop)
iv. Timing (Diwali)
v. Payment method (credit card)
Purchase Decisions
• For example, in buying sugar, a consumer gives
little thought to vendor or payment method.
• In some cases, consumers may decide not to
formally evaluate each and every brand, in some
cases, intervening factors may affect the final
decision.
 Non-Compensatory Models of Consumer
Choice
• Conjunctive: The consumer set minimum acceptable cutoff level
for each attribute and chooses the first alternative that meets
the minimum standard for all attributes.
• Lexicographic: The consumer chooses the best brand on the
basis of its perceived most important attribute.
• Elimination-by-aspects heuristic: The consumer compares
brands on an attribute selected probabilistically – where the
probability of choosing an attribute is positively related to its
importance – and brands are eliminated if they do not meet
minimum acceptable cutoff levels.
Purchase Decision
• Characteristics of the person (e.g., brand or product
knowledge), the purchase decision task and setting
(e.g., number and similarity of brand choices and time
pressure involved, and social context (e.g., need for
justification to a peer or boss) all may affect if and
how choice heuristics are used.
 Intervening Factors
• Even if consumers from brand evaluation, two general
factors can intervene between the purchase intention and
the purchase decision.
• Attitude of others: The extent to which another person’s
attitude reduces the preference for an alternative depends
on two things.
i. The intensity of the other person’s negative attitude
toward the consumer's preferred alternative.
ii. The consumer motivation to comply with the other
person’s wishes.
The more intense the other person’s negativism and the
closer the other person is to the consumer, the more the
consumer will adjust his or her purchase intension.
Figure 6.6 Stages between Evaluation of Alternatives and
Purchase
Perceived Risk
Functional

Physical

Financial

Social

Psychological

Time
Post Purchase Behavior
• Post-purchase Satisfaction
• Post-purchase Actions
• Post-purchase use and disposal
Figure 6.7 How Customers Use and Dispose of
Products
Rural Consumer Behaviour
• Rural consumers are more brand loyal
• Restrictions on consumption
• Collective consumption behaviour: for family rather than individual
• Seasonality of consumption based on seasonality of agricultural
production/income
• Specific patterns in the five-stage buying decision process
 Types of Buying-Decision Behavior

Difference between Involvement Level

brands High Low

Significant Complex Variety-seeking

Differences buying buying behavior
behavior
Dissonance-
Few
reducing buying
Habitual buying
Differences
behavior behavior
Other Theories of
Consumer Decision Making

Involvement Decision Heuristics

• Elaboration • Availability
Likelihood Model • Representativeness
• Low-involvement • Anchoring and
marketing strategies adjustment
• Variety-seeking
buying behavior
Mental Accounting
• Consumers tend to…
• Segregate gains
• Integrate losses
• Integrate smaller losses with larger gains
• Segregate small gains from large losses