Consumer Decision-Making Process Analysis

INTRODUCTION

Marketing is a method of informing a product or service value to consumers in order to sell the said product or service to the end consumer.

Marketing can be viewed as one of th e important functions in an organization. Marketing involves step-wise procedures of generating a product value, communicating and reaching out the value to the consumers. Marketing also leads to customer relationship management, which is vital for any organization.

Marketing also involves other factors such as target markets, market segmentation, buyer behaviour and others. Marketing acts as a connectivity between the social needs and the purchasing power of the common man. Marketing fulfills these social needs with the exchange of products and creating

Philip Kotler, marketing is the skill and ability of discovering, designing, and providing usefulness to gratify the requirements of the end market for a price. Marketing recognizes unsatisfied wants and cravings. It outlines and enumerates the extent of the classified market and the earning feasibility. It identifies which portions the organization is efficient of doing best and it plans and endorses the suitable merchandises and facilities.”

What are the main stages of the purchase decision-making process?

As noted by Flekel (2013), the marketing person’s aim is to understand the thought process of the consumer. He wants to find out how he can influence the consumer to decide to purchase his product or service. Buyer decision process falls into 5 stages right from the recognizing the buyer’s requirement, look out for various alternative options, evaluate comparisons and finally take a decision.

Need

When the marketer understands this need and feel, it would be the right time to pitch to the consumer of his products or service. Take for instance, a consumer has a need to buy soaps, he goes to the store to buy and get his need satisfied.

Information Search Process

Kotler (2002) argues that during Information Search process, the buyer searches for the product, which would fulfill his needs and requirements identified by him in the previous process.

According to Oliver (2011) Information search process can be further divided into two sub processes: internal and external search. Internal search would mean, buyers would search based on their own previous experiences and knowledge. For example, If a consumer has a need to buy garments, he would not ask for anyone’s suggestion, rather, he would choose a store based on his previous buying experience. On the other hand, external search would mean for high cost buying. For example, if a consumer wants to buy a high-end television, he may go in for suggestions from his family and friends, since he may not have previous experience in such