Source: Image of woman at laptop, curved arrow, television, newspaper, email icon, sedan car, sports car, add to cart button, rating stars, images by Video Scribe, License held by Jeff Carroll; image of toothpaste and toothbrush, Public Domain, http://bit.ly/1iGm0wh.
Hi, I'm Jeff, and in this lesson, we'll learn about the consumer buying process and how it will vary based on the level of involvement from the consumer. We'll also talk about how businesses can impact this buying process. So let's get started. The consumer buying process is what human beings go through while making choices to meet their needs and wants.
When you look at this process from the consumer's perspective, it can be broken down into five steps. They are problem or need recognition. The consumer identifies a need that must be met. For example, when you decide you're hungry or that you need a new shirt to go out this weekend. That is a problem or need recognition.
Information seeking. This is how a consumer learns about the attributes of the product or service that they wish to buy. An example of this is reading reviews on Google or Yelp, checking the nutritional labels on food, or asking friends who have made similar purchases. Evaluation of alternatives. Consumers often consider options before making a purchase.
They'll consider the four P's of product, price, place, and promotion. And the four influences of psychological, personal, social, and cultural will impact their decision making, too. Purchase. The consumer will buy the product, perhaps by visiting a store or placing an online order. The act of purchasing can be driven by rational motives, where the consumer has gone through all the logical reasons and has decided to make the purchase, or it can be driven by emotional motives, where the purchase is made based on an immediate want or desire.
Post purchase evaluation. After using the product or service, the consumer decides whether they like or dislike the purchase. If a shirt doesn't fit, or you don't like the style, then you might feel regret, and even return the shirt. Or you might love how the shirt feels and looks. While going through this process, the consumer may have a low or high involvement with each step, and this can depend on the personality of the consumer and the type of product being purchased.
For convenience goods, the consumer will have low involvement seeking information or evaluating alternatives, but for specialty goods, most of the time will be spent information seeking and evaluating all the different options. And if a person has more than enough money to make the purchase, they may behave differently from someone who needs to maximize the value for their money. So the person who needs to do this may spend more time seeking information or evaluating alternatives, and some consumers just won't make the effort, moving quickly to the purchase step.
When a business understands the consumer buying process and the nature of their customers, they can help influence and assist at each step. At the problem or need recognition step, a business might encourage consumers to actually recognize problems or needs through advertisements, email newsletters, or infomercials. During the information seeking step, websites are often a critical component for the information seekers. Businesses will want information to be easily found and understandable. They'll also want their online ratings to be positive so consumers will be encouraged to seek out more information.
Evaluation of alternatives. A business should be aware of the four P's, products should be clear and targeted to the consumer, prices should be competitive. Price incentives could also be used to encourage consideration. For example, a company like Progressive insurance lets consumers compare their prices to its competitors, and place and promotion should also be used to stand out from the alternatives. To help during the purchase step, salespeople should be knowledgeable, website shopping should be simple and safe, and consumers should be treated with respect.
And finally, a business will want to know what consumers think of their purchases during the post purchase evaluation. So it should be easy to give feedback through customer surveys, online reviews, and through customer service personnel. All right, nicely done. In this lesson, we learned about the consumer buying process. We talked about the reasons a consumer may have low or high involvement in the buying process, and we discussed ways a business can impact the consumer buying process. Thanks for your time and have a great day.
