Consumer Buying Behavior

6 Stages of the Consumer Buying Decision Process
1) Problem Recognition (awareness of need) Ex: see a commercial for a new pair of shoes, stimulates your recognition that you need a new pair of shoes.
2) Information search
Internal search – memory
External search if you need more information. Friends and relatives (word of mouth). For high involvement products, consumers are more likely to use an external search.
3) Evaluation of Alternatives: Need to establish criteria for evaluation, features the buyer wants or does not want.
4) Purchase decision: Choose buying alternative, includes product, package, store, method of purchase etc.
5) Purchase: May differ from decision, product availability
6) Post-Purchase Evaluation: Satisfaction or Dissatisfaction.


Categories that Effect the Consumer Buying Decision Process
1) Personal: Unique to a particular person. Demographic Factors. Sex, Race, Age etc. Who in the family is responsible for the decision making.
Young people purchase things for different reasons than older people.

2) Psychological factors:
• Motives: A motive is an internal energizing force that orients a person's activities toward satisfying a need or achieving a goal.
• Perception: Perception is the process of selecting, organizing and interpreting information inputs to produce meaning. Information inputs are the sensations received through sight, taste, hearing, smell and touch. (Average supermarket shopper is exposed to 17,000 products in a shopping visit lasting 30 minutes-60% of purchases are unplanned.)
• Ability and Knowledge: to change consumers' behavior about a product; need to give them new information. Inexperience buyers often use prices as an indicator of quality more than those who have knowledge of a product.
• Personality
• Lifestyle: Recent US trends in lifestyles are a shift towards personal independence and individualism and a preference for a healthy, natural lifestyle.

3) Social Factors: Humans are inherently social animals, and individuals greatly influence each other. Consumer wants, learning, motives etc. are influenced by opinion leaders, person's family, reference groups, social class and culture.
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Lars Perner, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Clinical Marketing
Department of Marketing
Marshall School of Business
University of Southern California