Consumer Decision-Making Process: A Case Study

In economy market, products and services consume by customers whether he or she is a buyer, user or payer every day. There are three common locations that consumption usually can happen, that are at home, in business organization and in public places (Sheth & Mittal, 2004). Before a customer consumes a product or services, he or she needs to make a purchasing decision, such as what to buy, when to buy, where to buy, or how to buy (Sheth & Mittal, 2004). In general, the main reason for a consumer to buy something is to fulfill his or her level of satisfaction during the consumption process. According to Kotler and Armstrong (2012), there are five important steps in consumer purchased decision-making process, which consist of problem recognition,

After searching the information, consumers evaluate alternatives to reach at the final brands choices (Kotler & Armstrong 1993). Often, consumers consider the product features such as price, ease of use, product quality, product size and other characteristics before selecting the preferred attributes (Zikmund & Amico, 2001). Thus, the consumers usually pay the most attention to preferred attributes which most suitable with the needs. Then, consumers evaluate the importance of each attribute in order to find out which attribute is more suitable for their unique needs and wants (Kotler & Armstrong, 1993). Besides that, the consumer’s expected total product satisfaction varies with the levels of different attributes among consumers (Kotler & Armstrong, 1993). If the levels of attribute give the consumer the highest perceived satisfaction, then the product become the preferred choice of consumers as it is available and affordable. Next, consumers have different attitudes toward the different brands during the purchase decision (Kotler & Armstrong, 1993). For example, consumers choose the product with only one attribute instead of four attributes. However, some consumers choose products with all the attributes. Kotler and Armstrong (1993) mentioned that purchase decision is different among consumers because it mainly depends on the individual preferences and the specific buying

According to Sheth and Mittal (2004), consumer makes the decision based on the determinant of alternatives. Consumers choose the products or services based on the satisfaction and need. Furthermore, purchase decision consists of three sub-processes. The first sub-process is consumer determine and analysis the most suitable product or service to fulfil the satisfaction. In this process consumer plays a role as a user to target the needs or wants. Before that, consumer plans the types of product or service that want to buy, purpose of the product or service to purchase, level of satisfy you would feel after use the product or service, and after that buyer overall the hypothesis and set the product which are suited to buyer needs. For example, housewife list out the shopping list to buy the products that wanted and at the same time she makes sure all the products brought are useful and the price of products are in the budget of based on her family