CONSUMER DECISION

MAKING PROCESS

Session Five
Behind the visible act of making a purchase lies a
decision process that must be investigated.
Types of Consumer Buying Behavior

 Extensive problem solving Behavior

 Routine Response/Programmed Behavior

 Variety seeking Behavior

 Impulse Buying Behavior

Problem Recognition
 Occurs when the consumer sees a significant
difference between his or her actual and ideal state.

 Where do we get our notion of what is ideal?

personal expectations
personal aspirations
culture
reference group
marketing
Information Search
 Internal Search
 External Search
 Internal Search
 Recalling information, experiences, and feelings concerning
products and brands.

 How much do we engage in internal search?

 What kind of information is recalled?

1. Brands
2. Attributes
3. Evaluations
4. Experiences

 Is internal search always accurate?

Confirmation bias
 External Search
 Consumers acquire information from outside
sources.
 Engage in pre-purchase and ongoing search
 External Sources
1. Retailer search
2. Media search
3. Interpersonal search
4. Independent search
5. Internet source
External Search
 Is external search always accurate?

 How Much do We Engage in External Search?

Motivation to Process Information
Ability to Process Information
Opportunity to Process Information
Evaluation of Alternatives
 Identifying Alternatives
 evoked set and consideration set

 The brands that become alternatives to the buyer's choice

decision are generally a small number, collectively called the
evoked set.

 The consideration set is the sub-set of brands known and/or

tried, which have a non-zero probability to be selected by the
buyer.
Evaluation of Alternatives
 Identifying Evaluative Criteria
 information search suggests criteria and
identifies brands
 Evaluative criteria includes those criteria that
are important to the consumer when rating
product alternatives
 Firms try to identify evaluative criteria through
market research.
 Buying Decision
 Consumers select and purchase the product
alternative that best meets his or her evaluative
criteria.
 From whom to buy, which depends on such
considerations
 Terms of sale
 Past experience buying from the seller
 Return policy.
 When to buy which can be influenced by
 store atmosphere
 time pressure
 a sale
 pleasantness of the shopping experience.
 Do not buy
Post Decision Evaluation
 After buying a product, the consumer compares it with
expectations and is either satisfied or dissatisfied.

 Satisfaction or dissatisfaction affects

consumer value perceptions
consumer communications
repeat-purchase behavior.

 Many firms work to produce positive post purchase

communications among consumers and contribute to
relationship building between sellers and buyers
Cognitive Dissonance
 In 1957, Leon Festinger published a theory of
cognitive dissonance
 It begins with the idea of cognitions.
 The "ideas" or "cognitions" in question may include
attitudes and beliefs, the awareness of one's
behavior, and facts.
 Cognitions are simply bits of knowledge.
 Most cognitions have nothing to do with each other.
 Cognitions may be related, unrelated or opposites
and related
Cognition Consonant
 Some cognitions, however, are related. For
instance, perhaps I have a sweet tooth and I
like ice cream.
 These cognitions are "consonant," meaning
that they are related and that one follows from
the other.
Cognitive Dissonance
 For instance, perhaps I like ice cream, but I am also
trying to lose weight. These two thoughts are
problematic -- if I eat ice cream, then I may gain
weight, and if I really want to lose weight then I
cannot eat ice cream.
 These types of cognitions are referred to as
"dissonant.“
 The basic idea behind cognitive dissonance theory is
that people do not like to have dissonant cognitions.
Cognitive Dissonance
 The feelings of post purchase psychological
tension or anxiety a consumer often
experiences
 Firms often use ads or follow-up calls from
salespeople in this post purchase stage to try
to convince buyers that they made the right
decision.
Eliminating Cognitive Dissonance
 By ignoring or eliminating the dissonant cognitions.
 Alter the importance of certain cognitions
 Adding or creating new cognitions.
 Finally, perhaps the most important way people deal
with cognitive dissonance is to prevent it in the first
place.
Post purchase Use
 Marketers observe how consumer use their
products
 Some consumer may discover new uses of
products other than what the product meant
for
 E.g- In Punjab, people use single tub washing
machines for making the summer drink “lassi”
Post purchase disposal
 Marketers educate the customers on how to
dispose the products like hazardous material,
napkins, plastic bags, beverage containers
and cans.
 HP offers a discount to its customers who
return empty cartridges back to company
 Reusing the product package helps company
reduce cost of packaging, reduces waste
disposal cost
Post purchase disposal
Pepsi Cans to Promote Recycling
 Over seven billion Pepsi cans will be branded
with recycling messages provided by the
National Recycling Coalition as part of
Pepsi’s new “Have we met before?”
campaign.
 The purpose of the campaign is to show that
new aluminum cans are produced with at
least 40 percent recycled aluminum.
Recycling factoids will be featured on 750
million Pepsi/Diet Pepsi aluminum cans per
month.
Low Effort Decision Making
 Heuristics
 Market Beliefs
 Brand Loyalty
 Habit
 Impulse Purchases
 Variety Seeking
Situational Influences
 Consumer behavior is influenced by the
circumstances surrounding the purchase of a
product.
 Social surroundings
 Physical surroundings
 Temporal effects
 Purchase task