Understanding consumer behavior

UNDERSTANDING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR:

Welcome back once again everyone; It has been a little while since I have posted but things have been crazy here at Saint Michael's College! But now that I am back to blogging I am going to teach you guys a little bit about understanding consumer behavior. This can be beneficial in two ways. The first being that you are going to learn a little more about marketing but secondly  you are going to be able to understand this process as a consumer yourself; because we all buy things and we all go through a process but we do not always realize we are doing so. So I am going to explain to you what the CONSUMER PURCHASE DECISION is and all the steps that go along with that.

lets first define what CONSUMER BEHAVIOR really is: The actions that a person take in purchasing and also using products. This also includes what goes through the minds of consume before hand as well as after the process.

There are 5 stages that the consumer has to pass through in making their final choice about buying a product or service. that 5 stage process is known as the PURCHASE DECISION PROCESS.

Throughout this blog i am going to go through each step with you to help you understand what is involved and what needs to be completed to make this process successful.

Lets jump right in with step #1

STEP 1: PROBLEM RECOGNITION; PERCEIVING A NEED

This is the first step that needs to take place, you need to be able to notice that you are in need of something. For example, you are about to call your mom to tell her that you got a good grade on your marketing test and you realize that you only have 2% battery life on your phone but you just charged your phone one hour ago. You have recognized that you have a problem; that problem being you do not have enough battery life to call your mom. You know that this is not how the device is supposed to work and there may be a defect in your phone making it so want to get a new phone. The need that you are perceiving is needing a new phone that is going to have a better battery life.

STEP 2: INFORMATION SEARCH; SEEKING VALUE 

The next step in the consumer purchase decision is information search. After you realize that you have a problem you being to search for information to try and resolve your problem. There are a few ways to start this process; you can try and remember products that you have dealt with in the past; known as INTERNAL SEARCH.   You can also use another approach known as EXTERNAL SEARCH; this comes in handy when you when you do not have sufficient knowledge about the product or you are scared of making the wrong decision. there are three ways that can help one with external search; those being 
1) Personal sources: relatives, friends, 
2) Public sources: product rating organizations, consumer reports
3) Marketer dominated sources: information from sellers, websites, sales people

when getting back to our smart phone example you are going to do some internal search but you are going to mainly use external search; you are going to talk to your friends and relatives, look at companies websites, the stores that carry that phone so that you have the ability to touch it and get a feel for it and lastly you may refer to some consumer reports to see how everyone else is liking to product. 

STEP 3: ALTERNATIVE EVALUATION; ASSESSING VALUE

Now that you have recognized the problem and you have begun the information search you are now able to move on to step 3: assessing value. This is all about evaluation criteria; factors that represent both the objective attributes of a brand and the subjective ones a consumer uses to compare different products and brands.

lets take our smart phone example again to walk through this process. The company that you are buying your smartphone from is going to do all that they can to try to catch your attention and buy their product and they do this through advertisement. As a customer you are going to have several different criteria for evaluating a brand; such as the best price, the best display, and the best battery life. This is the step that is going to help you decided on if you want the new I phone 6 or if you want to stick with the blackberry.

A key term that is helpful in the evaluation stage is CONSIDERATION SET: these are all of the brands that you are considering among all brands of which you are aware in the product class.

STEP 4: PURCHASE DECISION; BUYING VALUE

You have now reached step four of the process. You have already examined the alternatives in the consideration set and you are almost at the end result of your decision. There are two choices that you still need to make 
1) for whom to buy : The choice of which seller to buy from depends on considerations as the terms of sale, your past experiences from this seller and also the return policy. 
2) when to buy: Deciding when to buy is determined by a number of factors such as you may want to buy your phone sooner if one of your preferred brands is on sale or there is a rebate in place. 

This is a very important step in the consumer purchase decision, you are making the final decision as to where you are going to buy your product and when you are going to do so. All of  the previous steps add much insight to what is going on in this step; all of your research and recommendations from outside sources are put to place to buy the product.

STEP 5: POST PURCHASE BEHAVIOR; VALUE IN CONSUMPTION OR USE 

Now that you have bought your product it is time to compare it with what your expectations and you are either going to be satisfied or dissatisfied. If you are dissatisfied it is the markets job to figure out why the product was a deficient or if the consumer expectations were too high. 

when using our smartphone example if you ended up purchasing the I phone 6 you may think after "should i have bought the blackberry instead". This is a post purchase feeling known as COGNITIVE DISSONANCE. 

That completes the five step consumer decision process. It is a process that we go through every day; and also probably more than once a day depending on what we are doing. You can use this process when buying toothpaste which is a very routine buy or when buying a car which is a much more in depth type of buy. You use this process without even thinking, it is simply second nature to us. 

So lets Recap on the 5 steps:

1) Problem recognition

2) Information Search

3) Alternative Evaluation

4) Purchases Decision

5) Post Purchase Behavior 

I have attached a cartoon video for you to watch in regards to the buying decision process. This video outlines exactly what we covered in the above sections. 

If you can keep these steps in the back of your mind the next time you go to buy something, you are going to go through all of these steps in one way or another and you are not even going to know that you are doing so.

Thank you for reading everyone, and I hope that you enjoyed learning about consumer behavior in terms of the consumer buying process. 

Until next time;

                Alexis 

Resources used: 

Kerin, Roger A., and Steven William Hartley. Marketing. 11th Ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2013. Print.