Chapter 6:

Consumer Decision Making

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What Is the Personality Trait Characterizing
this Consumers

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Understanding Consumer Behavior

consumers
consumersmake
makepurchase
purchase
decisions
decisions

Consumer
Consumer
behavior
= HOW
behavior

consumers
consumersuse
useand
and
dispose
disposeof
ofproduct
product

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 Understanding Consumer Behavior
• Consumer behavior:
processes a consumer uses to
• make purchase decisions
• use and dispose
• factors that influence purchase decisions and product use

• Why we should understand consumer behavior!

• Defining a target market
• Designing a marketing mix.

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 Consumer Decision-Making Process
• 5 step process used by consumers when buying a product:

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 Consumer Decision-Making Process
1. Need Recognition:
Result of an imbalance between actual and desired states.
• Want-Got gap

Preferred
Preferred
Present
Present State
State
Status
Status

Marketing helps consumers recognize

an imbalance between present status and
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preferred state.
 Consumer Decision-Making Process
• Stimulus: ‫تحفيز‬++‫لا‬
Any unit of input affecting one or more of the five senses:
• Sight
• Smell
• Taste
• Touch
• Hearing

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 Consumer Decision-Making Process
Understanding Needs and Wants:
• Poor understanding  poor product may be produced.
• In global markets  more variation in needs and wants of
consumers in various regions.

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 Consumer Decision-Making Process
2. Information Search

• Internal Information Search: • Non-marketing-controlled:

• Recall information in memory • Personal experience
• Prior experience or • Personal sources,
• Prior knowledge about a product • Public sources

• Marketing-controlled:
• External Information search: • Advertising
• Seek information in outside • sales promotion,
environment • salespeople,
• product labels and packaging
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‫كلوركس‬
‫‪13‬‬
What would you do!
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 Consumer Decision-Making Process
• External Information Searches

Need Less Need More

Information Information
Risk
knowledge
experience
interest
Confidence in decision

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 Consumer Decision-Making Process

Evoked Set
• Evoked (consideration) set:
• Group of brands,
resulting from an
The information information search, from
search  which a buyer can choose
Evoked Set

Purchase!
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Consumer Decision-Making Process
3. Evaluation of Alternatives:

Analyze
Analyze product
product Pick
Pickproduct
productattributes
attributes
that are important
attributes
attributes that are important

Minimum
Minimumorormaximum
maximum
Use
Use cutoff
cutoff criteria
criteria levels
levels

Rank
Rank attributes
attributes by
by Price
Priceand
andBrand
Brandname
name
importance
importance
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 Consumer Decision-Making Process
4. Purchase:
• To buy or not to buy

• When
• What to buy (product type and brand)
• Where to buy (type of retailer, specific retailer, online or in store)
• How to pay

• Impulsive vs. planned purchase

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 Consumer Decision-Making Process
5. Post-purchase Behavior:
• You already bought it.
• Satisfy or not
• Regret it

• Cognitive Dissonance:
Inner tension that a consumer experiences after recognizing an
inconsistency between behavior and values or opinions.

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 Consumer Decision-Making Process
• Consumers can reduce dissonance by: ‫التنافر‬
• Seeking reinforcing information
• Avoiding contradicting information
• Returning the product

• Marketers reduce dissonance by:

• effective communication with purchasers.

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 Buying Decisions and Involvement
Involvement:
• the amount of time and effort a buyer invests in the search, evaluation,
and decision processes of consumer behavior.
• Level of involvement

• Length of time

• Cost

• Degree of information search

• Number of alternatives
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Buying Decisions and Involvement
• Consumer Buying Decisions
Routine Limited Extensive

Involvement Low Low to Moderate High

Time Short Short to Moderate Long

Cost Low Low to Moderate High

Internal and
Information Search Internal Only Mostly Internal
External
Number of
One Few Many
Alternatives
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 Factors Determining Involvement

Previous
Previous Experience
Experience
Financial
Interest
Interest
Social
Perceived
Perceived Risk
Risk of
of
Negative
Negative Consequences
Consequences Psychological

Social
Social Visibility
Visibility
Physical

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Not All Involvement Is The Same
Product
Product Involvement
Involvement

Situational
Situational Involvement
Involvement Significant other

Shopping
Shopping Involvement
Involvement Internet researchers

Emotional
Emotional Involvement
Involvement

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Marketing Implications of Involvement

High-involvement
High-involvement •• Extensive
Extensiveand
and
purchases:
purchases: •• Informative
Informativepromotion
promotion

•• In-store
In-store promotion
promotion
Low-involvement
Low-involvement •• Package
purchases: Packagedesign
design
purchases: •• Coupons
Coupons

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Factors Influencing Buying Decisions

Cultural Social
Factors Factors CONSUMER
DECISION- BUY /
MAKING DON’T BUY
PROCESS
Psycho-
Individual
logical
Factors
Factors

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 Consumer Decision-Making Process
• 5 step process used by consumers when buying a product:

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 Cultural Factors Influencing Buying
Decisions
Culture:
the set of values, norms, attitudes, and other meaningful symbols that
shape human behavior and the artifacts, or products, of that behavior
as they are transmitted from one generation to the next.

• What people eat

• How they dress
• What they think and feel
• What language they speak

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Social Factors Influencing Buying Decisions
• Why seek out the opinions of others!
• reduce their search and
• evaluation effort
• reduce uncertainty

• From:
• reference groups
• opinion leaders
• family members 

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 Social Factors Influencing Buying Decisions

Primary: small, informal Family and

group friends
Direct Face-to-Face
membership
Secondary: large, formal
Religious group
group
Reference
Groups
Aspirational Group

Indirect Non-membership Harley-Davidson

Non-aspirational Group
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Social Factors Influencing Buying Decisions
• Influences of Reference Groups

• They serve as information sources and influence perceptions.

• They affect an individual’s aspiration levels.

• Their norms either constrain or stimulate consumer behavior.

• The stronger personal values  the less susceptible to reference

group influences.
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 Social Factors Influencing Buying Decisions
Opinion Leaders:
• An individual who influences the opinions of others
• They first to try new products and services out of pure curiosity.
• Hard to locate.

• Marketers could create ones such as

• movie stars
• sports figures
• celebrities
Lincoln

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 Social Factors Influencing Buying Decisions
Family:
• is the most important social institution.

• Purchase Process Roles:

• Initiators

• Influencers
Kids 
• Decision Makers

• Purchasers

• Consumers

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Individual Influences on Buying Decisions

Gender
Gender

Age
Age
Life
LifeCycle
Cycle

Personality
Personality
Self-Concept
Self-Concept
Lifestyle
Lifestyle
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 Individual Influences on Buying Decisions
Gender
• Physiological differences between men and women result in different
needs
• Health and beauty products.

• Trends in gender marketing are influenced by the changing roles of

men and women in society.
• ‫ الحريم التاليات‬

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Individual Influences on Buying Decisions

• Consumer tastes in food, clothing, cars,

Age : furniture, and recreation are often age related.

Family Life • “Young singles”

• “Young married with children.”
Cycle Stage
• Retirement
Life event: • Divorce, and marriage

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 Individual Influences on Buying Decisions
Personality:
• Combines psychological makeup and environmental forces
• Type of car, clothes, or jewelry a consumer

• Self-concept:
• How consumers perceive themselves in terms of attitudes, perceptions,
beliefs, and self-evaluations

• Human behavior depends largely on self-concept

• Ideal self-image vs. real self-image.

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Psychological Influences on Buying
Decisions

Perception
Perception

Motivation
Motivation

Learning
Learning

Beliefs
Beliefs&&Attitudes
Attitudes
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 Psychological Influences on Buying
Decisions
Perception:
• the process by which people select, organize, and interpret stimuli
into a meaningful and coherent picture

Selective
Selective Consumer
Consumer notices
notices certain
certain stimuli
stimuli and
and ignores
ignores 3,000 ads a day but
Exposure
Exposure others
others notices only 20.

Consumer
Consumer changes
changes or or distorts
distorts information
information that
that
Selective
Selective conflicts
conflicts IPhone 11 vs. Galaxy s10
Distortion
Distortion with
with feelings
feelings or
or beliefs
beliefs
Consumer
Consumer remembers
remembers only
only
Selective
Selective that
that information
information that
that
Retention
Retention supports
supports personal
personal beliefs
beliefs 40
 Psychological Influences on Buying
Decisions
• Price Quality
Important attributes • Brand names

Threshold level of • Just-noticeable difference

perception
Foreign consumer • Brand perceived foreignness
perception

Subliminal perception • “Drink Coca-Cola”

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 Psychological Influences on Buying
Decisions
Motivation

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 Psychological Influences on Buying
Decisions
• Types of Learning:

An
An experience
experience changes
changes
Experiential
Experiential behavior
behavior

Not
Not learned
learned through
through direct
direct
Conceptual
Conceptual experience
experience

• Stimulus generalization
• Stimulus discrimination
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Stimulus generalization
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 Psychological Influences on Buying
Decisions
Beliefs and Attitudes

An organized pattern of
Belief knowledge that an individual
Belief
holds as true about his or her
world.

A learned tendency to respond

Attitude consistently toward a given
Attitude
object.

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 Psychological Influences on Buying
Decisions
Changing Beliefs:
1. Turn a neutral, negative, or incorrect belief about a product
attribute into a positive one.
• 24 Hour Fitness
2. Change the relative importance of a belief.
• Zoom in Camera
3. Add a new belief.
• Diet Pepsi

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