consumer decision making process essay

Definition and examples of the consumer decision-making process

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What is the consumer decision making process

The consumer decision-making process involves five basic steps. This is the process by which consumers evaluate making a purchasing decision. The 5 steps are problem recognition, information search, alternatives evaluation, purchase decision and post-purchase evaluation.

5 steps of the consumer decision making process

• Problem recognition : Recognizes the need for a service or product
• Information search : Gathers information
• Alternatives evaluation : Weighs choices against comparable alternatives
• Purchase decision : Makes actual purchase
• Post-purchase evaluation : Reflects on the purchase they made

The consumer decision-making process can seem mysterious, but all consumers go through basic steps when making a purchase to determine what products and services will best fit their needs. 

Think about your own thought process when buying something—especially when it’s something big, like a car. You consider what you need, research, and compare your options before making the decision to buy. Afterward, you often wonder if you made the right call. 

If you work in sales or marketing, make more of an impact by putting yourself in the customer’s shoes and reviewing the steps in the consumer decision-making process.

Steps in the consumer decision process

Generally speaking, the consumer decision-making process involves five basic steps.

1. Problem recognition

The first step of the consumer decision-making process is recognizing the need for a service or product. Need recognition, whether prompted internally or externally, results in the same response: a want. Once consumers recognize a want, they need to gather information to understand how they can fulfill that want, which leads to step two.

But how can you influence consumers at this stage? Since internal stimulus comes from within and includes basic impulses like hunger or a change in lifestyle, focus your sales and marketing efforts on external stimulus. 

Develop a comprehensive brand campaign to build brand awareness and recognition––you want consumers to know you and trust you. Most importantly, you want them to feel like they have a problem only you can solve.

Example: Winter is coming. This particular customer has several light jackets, but she’ll need a heavy-duty winter coat if she’s going to survive the snow and lower temperatures.

2. Information search

When researching their options, consumers again rely on internal and external factors, as well as past interactions with a product or brand, both positive and negative. In the information stage, they may browse through options at a physical location or consult online resources, such as Google or customer reviews.

Your job as a brand is to give the potential customer access to the information they want, with the hopes that they decide to purchase your product or service. Create a funnel and plan out the types of content that people will need. Present yourself as a trustworthy source of knowledge and information. 

Another important strategy is word of mouth—since consumers trust each other more than they do businesses, make sure to include consumer-generated content, like customer reviews or video testimonials, on your website.

Example: The customer searches “women’s winter coats” on Google to see what options are out there. When she sees someone with a cute coat, she asks them where they bought it and what they think of that brand.

3. Alternatives evaluation

At this point in the consumer decision-making process, prospective buyers have developed criteria for what they want in a product. Now they weigh their prospective choices against comparable alternatives.

Example: The customer compares a few brands that she likes. She knows that she wants a brightly colored coat that will complement the rest of her wardrobe, and though she would rather spend less money, she also wants to find a coat made from sustainable materials.

4. Purchase decision

This is the moment the consumer has been waiting for: the purchase. Once they have gathered all the facts, including feedback from previous customers, consumers should arrive at a logical conclusion on the product or service to purchase.

If you’ve done your job correctly, the consumer will recognize that your product is the best option and decide to purchase it.

Example: The customer finds a pink winter coat that’s on sale for 20% off. After confirming that the brand uses sustainable materials and asking friends for their feedback, she orders the coat online.

5. Post-purchase evaluation

This part of the consumer decision-making process involves reflection from both the consumer and the seller. As a seller, you should try to gauge the following:

• Did the purchase meet the need the consumer identified?
• Is the customer happy with the purchase?
• How can you continue to engage with this customer?

Remember, it’s your job to ensure your customer continues to have a positive experience with your product. Post-purchase engagement could include follow-up emails, discount coupons, and newsletters to entice the customer to make an additional purchase. You want to gain life-long customers, and in an age where anyone can leave an online review, it’s more important than ever to keep customers happy.

Tools to better understand your customer

Putting yourself in the customer’s shoes can help you steer consumers towards your product. Here are some tools to help you analyze their decision-making process and refine your brand marketing and sales tactics.

Customer journey map

A customer journey map visualizes a hypothetical customer’s actions. Use it to empathize with your customers as they go through a specific process or try to complete a purchase. Map out the actions the customer is likely to take.

Learn how to make a customer journey map to understand the decision-making process for your product/service.

Empathy map

Empathy maps help teams understand the customer’s mindset when dealing with a product or service. They can be used for personas or specific customer types. Empathy mapping is often most helpful at the beginning of a new project. Collaborate as a team to quickly get inside the heads of your customers during every step of product development, testing, and release.

Learn how empathy maps work so you can understand your customers better and make customer-oriented decisions .

User personas

Based on user research or past user interactions, user persona cards construct fictional or composite personas that break down and organize your data into distinctive types of users. Build a more human picture of your users and understand your user base better by creating user personas for the various types of users for your product or service.

Understanding the consumer decision-making process is key if you want to attract more customers and get them to make that crucial purchase. Use this process and the tools above to tune in to consumers and genuinely understand how to reach them.

Visualize your own customer journey map.

Lucidchart, a cloud-based intelligent diagramming application, is a core component of Lucid Software's Visual Collaboration Suite. This intuitive, cloud-based solution empowers teams to collaborate in real-time to build flowcharts, mockups, UML diagrams, customer journey maps, and more. Lucidchart propels teams forward to build the future faster. Lucid is proud to serve top businesses around the world, including customers such as Google, GE, and NBC Universal, and 99% of the Fortune 500. Lucid partners with industry leaders, including Google, Atlassian, and Microsoft. Since its founding, Lucid has received numerous awards for its products, business, and workplace culture. For more information, visit lucidchart.com.

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Stages of the Consumer Decision-Making Process

Checked : Aakanksha M. , Iris E.

Latest Update 21 Jan, 2024

Table of content

Need or problem

Search for solutions, alternative solutions, time of purchase, post-purchase.

The consumer buying process is made up of various phases, and it is by studying and analyzing these phases that the managers of the companies' marketing sector shape their communication strategies towards potential buyers. Over the years, marketing experts have traced all stages of the   consumer buying process , which are also called touchpoints in technical jargon. Whoever studies and exploits the main phases of the user's purchase process, has as objective to oversee all possible touchpoints to ensure that in the fundamental phase of interaction, i.e., that of the purchase, the user has clear in mind towards which brand or product to direct its own purchase choice.

Today, marketing is the most difficult challenge both for very high competition in every sector and for the disenchanted consumer, who loves to inquire and analyze the various offers on the market before making purchases. The consumer buying process should not be analyzed and exploited only to sell a product in the first instance. But, this analysis is very important to push the consumer to buy back and keep the level of loyalty high. The most useful but even more difficult part of the sales job is precisely this of the repurchase. After having had almost virtual contact points with the company, the consumer after the first purchase can perceive its real value, remaining more or less satisfied after having touched the product that has arrived at home; and concretely evaluated every detail of the shipment.

The purchasing process is identified as the customer journey, or all the steps that the consumer from the arising of need or desire to the moment of purchase. Here are all the stages of this consumer "journey."

The decision-making   process for purchasing on the web consists of five stages: the perception of need, the search for information; the evaluation of alternatives; the purchase decision, and post-purchase behavior. According to current theory (Kotler, 2007), the model assumes that consumers go through the five stages of the process for each purchase made:

The birth of a need, the appearance of a problem to be solved by buying a product, is the beginning of the process, which foresees the emergence of a need or a problem in the consumer's mind. It can be a primary need, such as eating and drinking, for example, or coming from the external environment. In past years, advertising focused heavily on this first phase of the purchasing process, or on the attempt to stimulate the need or desire in the consumer by leveraging latent needs.

Based on business objectives, many companies choose to start interacting with the end-user mind right from this stage. Because at this stage of the process, the consumer is much more sensitive and attentive to the messages that come to him precisely. Because he is looking for the right solution for the satisfaction of a need, he already feels. It is at this moment that communication must capture what the consumer is looking for; it is very important to send the message to the appropriate targets. At this stage, the consumer inquires and looks for useful elements for the choice, both online and offline.

An interested consumer does not necessarily look for information online. If the stimulus is strong and the product or service is immediately available, he is likely to purchase at the same time. Otherwise, the consumer may feel the need to search for more information on the web. The quantity of information sought by the consumer depends on the size of the stimulus, on the quantity of the starting information, and on the simplicity of searching for it. The consumer can obtain information from different sources: the starting point is generally a search engine, but also sites or portals to which he is accustomed to contacting.

In this third phase, the consumer begins to select the solutions identified and tries to make a skimming, excluding those that do not help him solve the problem or do not give full satisfaction to his need/desire.

The consumer uses the information collected to narrow his choice among a limited number of alternatives. There are many evaluation processes: each consumer considers the product or service as a set of attributes, and these have different priorities for each. The consumer assigns different degrees of importance to each attribute according to their needs and desires. This phase is supported by comparison services on the web: these websites allow not only to compare the price of the alternatives but also to compare the services and the quality of the same.

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This is the most important phase when consumption makes the final purchase choice; that is, it chooses one product over another, one brand over another. At this time of the purchase decision, communication can no longer influence the consumer who has already made the sorting and selection of the solutions suitable for him. At this delicate moment, however, the external opinions of colleagues, the distance of the Store, the absence of a payment method can influence the final choice. All these phases can be completely canceled if it is a small purchase, which the user often makes automatically as an impulse purchase. The consumer will purchase the absolute preferred alternative, but between the intention and the purchase decision. Two factors can intervene: the attitude of the others gives the first; furthermore, the purchase intention is influenced by exogenous situations not foreseen a priori.

After making a good or service purchase, the user will once again activate the evaluation process of the purchased product. In this evaluation, the consumer will decide whether the product fully, partially, or not fully meets his expectations. If the outcome is positive for brands and companies, it will be a return of far-reaching image given the word of mouth generation and the loyalty of the consumer who will repeat the purchase and recommend it to acquaintances. On the other hand, if the outcome is negative, the assessments will become image damage for the company. There is precisely one branch of marketing, Customer Relationship Management that takes care of the post-sales phase to detect customer opinions and possibly provide assistance.

Following the purchase, the consumer will be satisfied or not. If the product or service meets its expectations, the consumer will be satisfied; otherwise, it will remain unsatisfied. Modern consumers can put in place several online and offline measures to communicate their dissatisfaction. The online reviews sites are tools in the hands of consumers and use them to express their feedback on the structure or destination visited.

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Customer’s Decision Making Process

Consumer attitudes are formed by several aspects.

They can be influenced by the people’s beliefs, intentions or feelings towards certain types of goods and objects (Attitudes 2010). Besides, the attitudes make consumers prefer different brands or even favor certain stores and prefer them to the other ones. Of course, these attitudes are very individual and vary from one buyer to another.

For example, consumer attitudes about ice cream can be different. Someone believes that ice cream is refreshing on a hot day and this belief will make this person purchase a bucket of ice cream. The other person does not enjoy eating cold food; this is why ice cream would not be their choice of a dessert. It is impossible to suit all of the potential clients because there will always be opposing opinions about every type of goods.

Effect is an emotive part of the attitude; it is based on the way a person feels about a certain product, it could be related to some individual experiences (What Can Attitudes Tell Us about Consumers? n. d.).

For example, someone dislikes sushi because the ones had food poisoning after eating sea food. Some other customer purchases mint biscuits because they remind them of childhood. Behavioral intention is the possibility of a consumer to purchase certain goods. This variable is inconsistent.

The marketers try to influence the beliefs using changing the affect factor. Classical conditioning approach works through the pairing of goods with commonly liked stimuli, for example, by involving beautiful women into the advertisements of the products.

Besides, the advertisements add another attractive trait to the goods, making them well known. The product people saw or heard about before is more likely to be purchased than an unknown new product.

The key elements that influence the customer’s decision-making process can be cultural, individual, social, and psychological

It is crucial for a successful marketer to understand how these factors work to make their product more attractive and maintain their marketing campaigns (What Is Consumer Behavior? 2014).

In most cases, the marketers’ strategies are focused on the psychological factors that influence decision making and encourage people to purchase certain goods. This aspect includes people’s self-perception and image. To stay in the trend people would gladly buy fashionable clothing, accessories, and electronics.

Even food can be fashionable. This is how cheaper replicas or variations of goods are promoted, they represent expensive and fashionable things, yet they cost much less. In order to make certain goods’ reputation better, the marketers engage celebrities in the advertisements. This makes the promoted goods fashionable and desired.

Another strategy the marketers use to promote their products is scheduling the most suitable time for the advertisements. For example, advertising beer and snacks in the breaks of sports programs or after the half-time of football games. The marketers of food products study their potential groups of clients and find out the time when these people are hungry. This strategy helps them make the customers crave for the promoted goods.

Studying these factors and strategies is useful for consumers because it makes them re-think their attitudes towards purchasing and decision making. The person-oriented towards extended problem solving is more involved into the process of evaluation of the products, while the person, whose problem solving is low, is more likely to buy things on impulse (Grewal & Levy 2012).

Humans live in groups

They have families, friends, colleagues from work, school mates. We are used to dividing our society into various groups and relating to some of them. Normally, the members of one group share certain behavioral patterns. Such reference groups are able to create a strong impact on an individual. The group influences are widely used in the sphere of marketing.

The references can be of three main types. Aspirational reference includes the individuals against which the customers would mainly compare themselves. This is why makeup companies use celebrities for advertising their products. The good looking stars represent the image women would generally want to be like. Associative references represent the equals because the opinion of the members of our groups often means a lot to us.

This is why teenagers shop in two stages. First, they go to a store with their friends a pick out things that will be approved by the group and after that bring the parents that would buy the chosen items (Group Influences 2010). Dissociative reference involves the group’s people would not want to be like.

The store called The Gap uses this kind of reference to work though the dissociation of young people from their parents and the older generation that wears old-fashioned clothing.

Reference groups shape individuals’ purchasing decisions. Besides, the marketers’ strategies are based on the observation that the members of one group share behavioral habits and needs.

Opinion leaders are the people that are in charge of groups and can form and influence the group’s actions and choices. Normally, the marketers believe that if statistically, the group is interested in a certain product, other people that associate themselves with this group will also purchase this product (Reference Groups n. d.).

Attitudes 2010 , Consumer Psychologist .

Grewal, D & Levy, M 2012, Marketing , Irwin Australia, Sydney.

Group Influences 2010 , Consumer Psychologist .

Reference Groups n. d., Boundless . Web.

What Can Attitudes Tell Us about Consumers? n. d. Crab .

What Is Consumer Behavior? 2014, WiseGeek .

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Consumer Decision Making Process Essay

Introduction The knowledge of buying behavior of consumers is necessary to understand the psychology of how they argue for and select items or their alternatives. This knowledge is necessary since it helps companies to improve their marketing campaigns to reach more consumers effectively (Hanaysha, 2018). There are different processes that are involved in the consumer behavior. A wide range of factors, specificities and the social characteristics of the individual come into play. The interaction of these factors consists of the consumer behavior. For instance, a consumer would first analyze what he would like to consume, and selects only goods or services that posses a greater utility. It is important to note that these factors vary with intensity and influence across regions, it is not always a straight forward and generalized process. It is therefore difficult for marketing managers to formulate and implement a suitable strategy to secure market segment. This is even made harder where the business operates in a competitive market with almost similar alternatives. The following paper will highlight the factors that influence a consumer decision making process.

Factors influencing Consumer Buying Behavior To understand the drive for consumer decision and behavior, a marketing manager must ask themselves the following questions: what do the consumers buy and why? How do they buy? When and where do they buy? And finally, who is involved (Stankevich, 2017). Generally, there are five factors or forces that can answer these questions. It involves the psychological factors, economic factors, social factors, cultural and personal factors.

Psychological Factors This category of factors stems from an internal drive. The most crucial ones for consideration are Motivation and Perception. Motivation can be described as the urge or drive which an individual develops to satisfy their needs. This factor becomes a buying motive when the individual makes a purchase. A motive in this case is an inner urge that compels a person to make the purchase, it is a driving force. Needs define the motive. Biogenic needs and Psychogenic needs are the two examples of needs defining motive. Biogenic needs are caused by the presence of a physiological state like thirst or hunger. A person is motivated to purchase water to satisfy thirst. Psychogenic needs involve the psychological status of a person, and may include recognition and esteem.

There are generally five senses that compose the human perceprion, this include smell, sight, hearing and touch. Each of the listed sense feeds information to the brain which is overwhelming causing the brain to only select desirable traits (Ramya & Ali, 2016). Therefore, information perceived is not always full. This cognitive factor is affected by the following elements: subjectivity, categorization, selectivity, past experience and exception. Subjectivity is the preexisting view of an individual; consumers buy goods and services due to preexisting knowledge about the product. Perception of a good or a service has a lot to do with the experience of the product by the consumer. Should a good or a service possess the maximum utility for the individual, their perception of the product is sealed in their minds and will always come back to purchase the product.

Social Factor This factor denotes the social aspect of man. The behavior patterns usually acquired from socialization affect the decision making of a consumer. These socialization factors may include family, roles and status. At the family level, consumer decision making is influenced by the size of the family. Some families are extended while others are nuclear. Extended families result in massive buying from a consumer. The individual is also likely to develop varied tastes and lifestyles based on interaction with the extended family. The nuclear family influence takes two forms, orientation or procreation. In orientation, the person takes birth. Upbringing in this family setting means the person draws influences from parents. Should the parents be vegetarian, the child is likely to consume vegetables and refrain from animal products. The other type of family is from individuals procreating, they typically involve spouses and children. It is important for marketers to understand the demand derived by these set of individuals to better set an effective strategy. The roles and status social factor inclines on the taste and preferences developed from categorization to a certain class. Marketers need to assess the social classes available in a market to know the potential and mode of promotion for their products.

Cultural Factors Human behavior is a result of learning and adopting processes. Individuals grow up learning about the values, perceptions, patterns and preferences from socializing with individuals around them. This leads to the development of a set of values which are distinct to a particular group hence culture. There are subcultures that influence the acquired values and tastes of a community. They may be nationality groups, race, religion and geographical areas (Durmaz et al., 2011). Cultural factors that influence consumer behavior include those set of beliefs that are shared within a group. This culture is usually passed down from generations. For instance, food is strongly related to culture, the Rajastan community regard fish as unacceptable food, other cultures consume them as their staple food. The subculture factors like religion also prohibit consumption of certain foods. Pork and Alcohol consumption among the Muslim faith is a taboo.

Economic Factors The economic factors include those that are brought about by financial potential. Individuals with high disposable income have increased spending as compared to those with limited resources. The financial factors at play include personal income, income expenditure, savings, and consumer credit (Lautiainen, 2015). The personal income of an individual dictates the consumption behavior of the individual. This includes the disposable income and discretionary income. Disposable income refers to the money balance while discretionary income is money remaining after omission like the basic necessities of life and taxes. Therefore, an increase in discretionary income increases the consumption behavior of an individual. Savings is money set aside for future purposes. If an individual decides to increase his savings, less money is left to spend on items leading to decrease in their demand. However, should the individual decide to spend money, there is high demand for luxury goods.

Personal Factors There are factors that are related to the individual which denotes the buying criteria. For example, age, occupation, income and lifestyle. At different age cycles, people buy different commodities which change with trends, tastes and preference. The occupation or profession of an individual also denotes the likely goods consumed by an individual. For instance, the items purchased by a doctor cannot be similar to those purchased by lumber jacks. Therefore, marketing managers have to design different marketing strategies which addresses the dominant occupation within the area. The lifestyle of an individual is also an important factor since it paves the way for the preference of a person.

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Effect on the Consumer Decision-Making Process Essay

When marketers attempt to apply the consumer decision-making (CDM) process to developing strategies, they should be aware that although the process is inherently linear, it can be complex when addressing various influencing factors. One aspect which guides the need recognition and further steps is the type of consumer, which is segmented based on characteristics. These include perfectionist, price consciousness, brand awareness, fashion-conscious, recreation, and impulsive shoppers (Rezaei, 2015).

Therefore, each type of shopper has inherently unique needs to fulfill and different perspectives on the outcome of the product purchase. This should be assessed in terms of product selection, pricing, and advertising strategies.

At certain times, the CDM process helps to identify an inherent gap between attitudes and consumer behaviors. A prominent example of this is environmentally friendly products. Although most consumers would identify themselves as eco-friendly, only a small portion would actively purchase products that are either produced or labeled as such, despite active marketing communication and heavy investment of producers to make these choices available.

This paradox was identified by marketers as the attitude-behavior gap. In practically every setting and country, the CDM process is poorly influenced by marketing in regard to eco-friendly or similar-type products. This is due to the affective stage (related to feelings) never transitioned to the conative stage of the actual purchase (Shim, Shin, & Kwak, 2018).

Apple Inc. represents a perfect example of the relation of brand image effect on the consumer decision-making process. It has evolved its brand based on ease of use, individuality, and style, which attracted regular people to use these expensive and complex devices, which were previously meant only for technology lovers. Furthermore, the brand offers a unique customer experience, which the company’s marketing communication emphasizes. The golden circle theory states that consumers do not buy the product but the purpose with which it is made. Apple is able to leverage its marketing and brand for consumers to have confidence in the excellent quality, and therefore influence their decision-making process (Almutlaq, 2016).

Almutlaq, H. (2016). Exploring the relationship between brand image and consumer purchasing decision: A theoretical framework. Journal of American Science, 12 (5), 85-92. Web.

Rezaei, S. (2015). Segmenting consumer decision-making styles (CDMS) toward marketing practice: A partial least squares (PLS) path modeling approach. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 22 , 1–15. Web.

Shim, D., Shin, J., & Kwak, S. Y. (2018). Modeling the consumer decision-making process to identify key drivers and bottlenecks in the adoption of environmentally friendly products. Business Strategy and the Environment, 27 (8), 1-13. Web.

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Essay on Consumer Decision Making Process

Consumer behavior is the study of individuals, or organizations and the processes consumers use to search, select, use and dispose of products, services, experience, or ideas to satisfy needs and its impact on the consumer and society. Understanding the consumer behavior is crucial for effective marketing helping managers identify appropriate people to aim and design. There are four major aspects of customer satisfaction namely; consumer affect and cognition, consumer behavior, consumer environment, and marketing strategy (Saaty, 2008).

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The consumer behavior deals with issues like how we get information about products. How alternative products are assessed, why different people choose or use different products at a certain situation, deciding on value for money, extent of risk to take with what products, what influences our buying decisions, and our use of the product (Darley, Blankson, & Luethge 2010). It also examines ways in which brand loyalties are formed and changed. In summary the mental, emotional and physical activities that people engage in when selecting, purchasing, using and disposing of products and services so as to satisfy needs and desires are all what is entailed in consumer behavior (Saaty, 2008).

In our case we are going to discuss Canon USA, a personal electronics company from Japan whose American headquarters is located off the Long Island Expressway and near the technology corridor of Route 110. The headquarters features modern amenities and a 52-acre campus. Canon aims to be a good corporate citizen within the community and will continue fostering relationships in the surrounding area (Canon USA. 2017).

The products canon company manufacture are; cameras and camcorders, lenses, flashes and binoculars, office solutions, personal and home office solutions, professional and large formal printers, production printing , network video solution, projectors and reference display, healthcare technology and industrial products. The product that we will discuss in this situation is canon camera DSLR .Canon camera DSLR is the one which will help us analyze the process of decision making in a consumer (Canon USA. 2017).

To begin with, the consumer decision making include, need arousal, information utility, criteria development and evaluation of alternatives. A propositional inventory is developed that postulates the relationship between atmospherics and the three primary stages of consumer decision processes pre-purchase, consumption, and post-purchase evaluations (Hoffman & Turley, 2015). The online consumer behavior and decision making processes is viewed to examine the link between external factors and one or more components of the decision making process.

Need arousal; Need arousal is a measurement of whether the individual recognizes the need for a solution and chooses to activate the remainder of the process, or alternatively the need remains latent and the process is truncated (Hansen, 2005). Need arousal is the first component of in the decision making process procedure and therefore acts as the trigger of the continuation of the process. This is where a consumer can feel the difference between the current situation and the desired situation, so trying to resolve these differences (Triantaphyllou & Mann 1995).

Information utility involves the collection, processing, and use of information from any source to aid in the resolution of the problem or an opportunity (Milner & Rosenstreich, 2013). Information utility can provide a better understanding of where the customers get information, what information they are seeking and how they use it. This is influenced by marketing strategies of retailers for example; communicate information about the brand through promotion.

Criteria development; the development of criteria component of the model comprises a preliminary consideration leading to formation of an evoked set, and in tandem with this, development of the decision criteria that will later be used to evaluate possible solutions offered by the evoked set.

Evaluation of solution; this sits below criteria development and comes prior to outcomes. This may include; substitute products and product categories, as well as brand choice. Consumer at this stage, according to the information already obtained, Select a product that feels satisfy his need and buys it.

After purchase behavior: Consumer compare purchased products with ideas, products, competitors, perceptions and expectations of the product and two satisfaction and dissatisfaction, which may appear different reasons.

A customer may need a camera not only to take the photos but also to have smart and clear photos at a fair price and maybe a small size which is easy to handle. These situations are the ones that a customer may desire among others like the connection to transfer the photos to his personal computer, rework the image in a computer and if the camera would send through email.

On the information utility, the company would gather the information from the customers by use of retailers where the customers would be reporting problems. The consumers would get the information about the product from the media, the same retailers or the personal sellers, the information displayed on the packaging material of the camera. The information that the consumer would get would be the price, the size and the resolution. This piece of information the customers could get easily from the retailers. The consumer may require a camera that is water proof to take photos inside the water, a camera that do not consume a lot of power, one that takes photos which can be edited by any photo editing software or can send the photos through email.

The criteria development would depend on what the customers has said of the product in the market, if it was on the superiority of the photos the company would improve on the megapixels of the camera (Peter, 2010). The customers would complain on the power consumption the strategy that would be laid is of making more superior batteries. The consumers would complain on the price, this would lay a strategy of making another model with the same features but at a cheaper cost. The demand of the waterproof cameras would rise and these would lead to us producing more. The evaluation of solution would be to work out on the criteria laid during the criteria development. Then the company would wait for the results.

Lastly, need to study consumer behavior is essential for marketers. Consumer decision making process helps the company create a product in the manner that the consumer wants. I would recommend the company to use media for the information about their products to reach the consumers. The companies should encourage personal selling in order to advertise their product.

Saaty, TL. 2008. Decision making with the analytic hierarchy process. International Journal of Services Sciences, 1(1), pp. 83-98

Canon USA. 2017. About canon. Retrieved from https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home, accessed on May 26, 2017

Hoffman, KD & Turley, LW. 2015. Atmospherics, Service Encounters and Consumer Decision Making: An Integrative Perspective. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 10(3), pp. 33-47.

Hansen T. 2005. Perspectives on consumer decision making: an integrated approach. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 4(6), pp. 420-437

Darley, WK. Blankson, C. & Luethge DJ. 2010. Toward an Integrated Framework For Online Consumer Behavior And Decision Making. Psychology &marketing, 27(2)

Peter, JP. 2010, Consumer Behavior and Marketing Strategy, 9th revised edition. New York: Kumar Publisher

Deaton, A & Muellbauer, J, 1980. Economics & Consumer Behavior. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Milner, T & Rosenstreich, D, 2013. A Review of Consumer decision Making Models and Development of a New Model for Financial Services, Journal of Financial Services Marketing, 18 (2), pp. 106-120.

Triantaphyllou E. & Mann, SH. 1995. Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process for Decision Making In Engineering Applications: Some Challenges. International Journal of Industrial Engineering: Applications and Practice, 2(1), pp. 35-44,

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Consumer Decision-making Process

This report explains the process consumers usually go through when purchasing a laptop.  The report uses the consumer- decision making process model to help a laptop manufacturer understand the consumer buying process and how they can intervene in it to ensure their laptop brand is purchased more than competitors’ brands.  According to the report, customers usually go through a five stages process when   purchasing a laptop. These stages include need recognition, information gathering, evaluating the available alternative, selecting and purchasing the most preferred brands and finally evaluating their purchased brand and engage in post-purchase behaviour which can be the ‘make or break’ for the company.

Consumer Decision-Making Process when Buying a Laptop

One of the most important things for any company is to understand their customers’ behaviour during the pre-purchase, purchase and post purchase stages. This would help them understand their customers well hence being able to offer products and services that meet their needs.     This report explains the steps that consumers usually goes through when purchasing a laptop.  The report will be divided in several subheading based on the five stages of the consumer decision-making process model.\

Need/problem recognition

The first step in consumers’ decision making process is the need recognition. Need recognition occurs when a consumer discover unmet need that must be satisfied (Lamb et al, 2011).  As stated by Kolter and Armstrong (2015), need recognition can be triggered by internal stimuli, such as hunger, thirst or external stimuli such as advertisement, friends among others. Just like other purchase decision, consumer’s decision to buy a laptop usually starts by discovering that they really need the product.    There are several factors that can trigger one to realize they need a laptop. For instance, their old laptop maybe outdates, they may be in need of more conveniences which desktop can’t give them or maybe they would   need an extra laptop to handle office work.

Information gathering

The second step in consumer decision making process is information gathering. Once an individual’s discover that they have unmet need that need to be satisfied, they start gathering information on how they   can satisfy them (Kolter and Armstrong, 2015). As pointed out by Lamb et al (2011), consumers always gather information from various sources which include their own memory, friends, advertisements, Internet, reading materials, mass media as well as handling and experimenting with various brands. In regard to purchasing a laptop, once individual recognize they need one, they don’t go directly to the shop to purchase any laptop they get.  They first of all gather information from various sources. According to a recent study, most consumers spend averages of 79 days   gathering information before making their final purchase decision.  The study also indicated that 81% consumers of electronic products gather information on the internet with search engine and companies/products’ websites being the most utilized (Charbonneau, 2013). In additional to internet, consumers would also gather information from their friends and families who already own similar products i.e. laptop (Lamb et al, 2011).   This stage end when the consumers get enough information in regards to all the alternatives they have to fulfil their unmet needs (Kolter and Armstrong, 2015). For instance, in the purchase of a laptop, the information gathering stage would typically end when the consumers identifies a numbers of laptop brands and models that will fulfil their unmet need.  At this stage, a company should identify customers’ sources of information and ensure   they communicate their brand information through the sources.

Evaluating the   Alternatives

The third stage in consumers’ decision making is where the customers evaluated the alternatives. As stated earlier, the information gathering stage end when the consumers   identified a numbers of products or brands that would satisfy their needs. However, since they only need one product and their goal is to maximize their satisfaction, they evaluate the identified alternatives so as to choose the best deal (Kolter and Armstrong, 2015).   As mentioned by Lamb et al (2011), there are no standard criteria that consumers use to evaluate the available alternatives. Each consumer evaluates the alternatives based on the factors that are most important to him or her. For instance, when purchasing a laptop, one consumer may use price and customers reviews as his/her criteria for choosing the laptop   while another one may chose quality  and physical attractiveness as their  main criteria for evaluating the same product. This therefore suggests that, it is important for a laptop manufacturer to conduct market research in order to understand the most important factors used by customers to evaluate the available brands before they purchase.   Understanding these factors would help the manufacturer, produce, distribute, package and price their laptop brand in a way that will attract more customers hence gaining competitive advantage in the market.

Purchase Decision

This is the fourth stage in consumers’ decision making process and it start immediately an individual is done evaluating the available alternatives.   Basically, this stage involves selecting the best alternative and eventually purchasing/acquiring it (Lamb et al 2011).    As noted by Kolter and Armstrong (2015), logical customers will usually purchase the products that meet or surpassed the product’s evaluation criteria they had in mind. However, most of the laptops models available in the market have competing brands with similar features, prices, quality and appearance.   This means that two or more laptops can meet the customers’ evaluation criteria and therefore stand an equal chance of being purchase.    For a laptop manufacturer to ensure their products is chosen over competing brand, they needs to go an extra mile to offer excellent after sales services, warranty and other offers that will   attract the customers to their brands.   Alternatively, they can develop advertisements that display their products as more superior than rival brands as this would help reduce customers’ dissonance.

Post –purchase decision

This is the final stage in consumers’ decision making process.  It is at this stage that the customers get to evaluate whether the product they purchased   satisfies their needs or not and they will then engage in post-purchase behaviour (Kolter and Armstrong, 2015). This stage is very important to a laptop manufacturer as customers’ experience with the product goes a long way to affects the reputation of their brand. Normally, if customers are satisfied with the product they become loyal as well as spread positive word -of-mouth. On the other side, if the product fail to live up to the expectation,  they  would tarnish the reputation of the brand by  spreading  negative word-of –mouth among their friends, family, as well as the general public  through  online products reviews  and rating (Kolter  and Armstrong, 2015). To succeed in the market, laptop manufacturer should therefore take this final stage very seriously. They should   do follow-up after product purchase to gather feedbacks from their customers. The feedbacks should then be used to improve their products as well as sale services. In conclusion,    the report shows that    when buying a laptop, customers usually goes through various stages.  First, they have to discover that they need the laptop. Secondly, they gather information relating to laptop from various sources with the major one being the internet. Thirdly, they evaluate the alternative laptop brands available using criterion that is most important to them.  Fourth, they select the laptop that they prefer most. Finally, they evaluate whether the laptop they purchased live up to the expectation or not. The outcomes of this evaluation will then determine their post-purchase behaviour.   To gain competitive advantages in the market, a laptop manufacturer should understand each of the   consumers’ decision making process mentioned above and respond appropriate.              

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