The consumer buying process looks very simple from the consumers’ viewpoint. But it involves a complex understanding of, who makes the buying decision to the types of buying decisions to the steps in the buying process from the marketers’ viewpoint.
People generally play five roles in the buying decision. Either you can be the ‘initiator’, who put forth the idea or need for the product or service or, you can be the ‘influencer’ or, you can be the ‘decider’, who decides as to what is to be purchased, how is to be purchased and from where it will be purchased or, you can be the ‘buyer’ making the purchase or, you can be the ‘user’, who is going to consume the product or service.
As the consumer buys a plethora of products and services right from toothpaste to a laptop to a car to an apartment, the decision for buying expensive products requires a lot of thinking and involvement.
Based on this aspect, Henry Assael has talked about four types of consumer buying based on the degree of buyer involvement and the degree of differences among brands.
They are:
1. Complex Buying Behaviour:
Complex buying behaviour happens in the case of high involvement, expensive, infrequent purchases like a car or, an apartment. Generally, there are significant differences between brands and sometimes sub brands also compete for the same consumer’s attention. In the case of Rs. 3 to 4 Lacs car category, three models – Wagon R, Zen Estilo and A-Star from Maruti Suzuki compete for attention; whereas Hyundai is competing with Santro, i10 and Grand i10 in the segment. A marketer needs to differentiate its offering from the competitors’ offering and position the product in such a way to influence the final decision making process of the consumer.
2. Dissonance Reducing Buying Behaviour:
Sometimes there are little differences between the brands in the high involvement category, which leads the consumer to buy a product of his choice based on the price or his liking. After the purchase, the consumer acquires new beliefs and forms a set of attitudes. These beliefs and attitudes leads the consumer to experience the dissonance that comes from noticing that other brands would have been just as good, if not slightly better.
3. Habitual Buying Behaviour:
Consumers have low involvement with most of the low cost, frequently purchased products sold in the market. Consumers don’t spend time on deliberating over the purchase, if there are no significant differences between the brands. That’s why in this category, the pricing and sales promotion schemes works in favour of the company to stimulate product trial or induce purchases.
Television advertising in this category works more than the print, because the brand beliefs are influenced by the passive learning.
4. Variety Seeking Buying Behaviour:
In the case of low involvement products, when there are significant differences between the brands, consumers generally go for checking out different brands. This kind of behaviour is often found, while consumers make purchase for Biscuits and Potato Chips. The market leader tries to dominate the shelf space like Lays and Kurkure do; while the market challenger lowers the price or give more quantity like Balaji or Diamond Chips.
Stages of the Buying Decision Process
Marketing Scholars like John A. Howard, Jagdish N. Sheth, James F. engel, Roger D. Blackwell, Paul W. Miniard, Mary Frances Luce, James R. Bettman and John W. Payne, have devised a five stage model of the buying decision process.
These five stages are the following:
1. Problem Recognition:
The buying process starts with the buyer sensing a need or a problem. The problem or need can be sensed by your internal stimuli or your external stimuli. You may be roaming in a shopping mall and may feel hungry. That leads you to the need for food. Or, you may like a Netbook at E-Zone, while roaming in the mall. In the case of food, it’s the internal stimuli, while in the case of shirt; it is the influence of external stimuli, which is driving you to recognise the problem or need. Marketers try to identify and trigger your stimuli, to create an interest into their products or services, which can further be translated into purchases.
2. Information Search:
Once you have the need or a problem, you try to search for more information regarding the product. In the case of the need for food, you may not search information, if you are familiar with the options available like McDonalds, Pizza Hut, KFC or a roadside dhaba etc. In case you are not familiar, then you try to search for the information. You may be longing for the recently launched Apple iPad 2.
But due to non-availability in Indian market, you may settle for a Netbook. Here the search for the information for a Netbook is a complicated one. Because the netbook is a costly and infrequent purchase, it gets you more involved in the purchase. You don’t buy a netbook just based on the impulse. Once you identify the need, you get into the mode of heightened attention, where you become more receptive toward the information for the netbook.
Going further, you may go for active information search, where you are trying to find the information from family and friends, through mass media like Newspapers, magazines, TV or by browsing technology websites like Tech2(dot)com or techtree(dot)com or Thinkdigit(dot)com or by visiting netbook showrooms or by visiting E-Zone, Croma or Jumbo stores across your city.
In any market, there are several players, who offer similar kind of products. All these brands are called total set. In the case of Netbook, total set consists of Asus, HP Acer, Sony, Dell, Samsung, Lenovo, HCL, Wipro, Zenith etc. But the consumer may not be aware about all these 11 plus brands. He or she may be aware about say 7 brands – Asus, HP Acer, Sony, Dell, HCL and Zenith. These seven brands are part of the consumer’s awareness set.
Again, the consumer may only think about HP Acer, Sony and Dell, that becomes a part of consideration set. Then the consumer may strongly think about buying Hp Acer or Sony, which is a part of his or her choice set. Then the consumer may take the decision, which netbook to buy on the basis of the choice set.
As the consumer moves from the awareness set to consideration set to choice set to the decision making, a company must leave no stones unturned to get into the consumer’s awareness set first. Once they get into the awareness set, it should position the products in such a way that it makes to the final choice set and subsequently to the purchase of the product. In this respect, the fourth P of marketing – promotion is very important to communicate the right message to the right people at the right point of time.
3. Evaluation of Alternatives:
Once the search for information is over; the consumer needs to evaluate the alternatives before he or she makes the purchase. In the case of buying salt or buying potato chips, the consumer may not think twice about a brand. But in the case of high involvement purchase like a netbook, consumer tries to evaluate all the alternatives on the basis of various benefit attributes.
In buying any netbook, the varying attributes may be the processor, screen size, weight, keyboard size, battery backup, hard disk size, webcam, operating system, wireless connectivity, multimedia capability, price etc. On the basis of these attributes, the consumer will try to rank the attributes and then take the decision accordingly. For some consumers, the processor, screen size, multimedia capability, battery backup and hard disk size may be important.
For others keyboard size, operating system, wireless connectivity, screen size, hard disk size and the price may be more important. Based on the individual preference, the consumer may choose the product.
For a company like HP or Acer, it means to provide the best combination of attributes widely applicable to the consumers. In the process, the company may emphasise more on the attributes on which they score better than their competitors. That’s why Sony advertises for looks, class and quality, although the price is always higher than the competitors. Acer advertises for the best value for money netbook, while HP talks about reliability, service backup and high quality.
4. Purchase Decision:
Based on the choice set, the consumer forms the intention to buy a certain brand. However, two factors can intervene between the purchase intention and the purchase decision. These two factors are other’s attitude and unanticipated situational factors. The attitude of others can be your family member, friend or acquaintance or infomediaries like Mouthshut(dot)com, Tech2(dot)com, Techtree(dot)com, Amazon(dot)com, Autocarindia(dot)com, Zigwheels(dot)com or some blog or a product review in newspapers and magazines. Consumers are generally influenced by these reviews. An unanticipated situational factor like losing a job or poor service by the sales person or another need becoming important; can also lead to deter you from making the purchase.
Once a consumer has made up his mind about buying a certain product or service, he needs to decide the brand, the dealer or retailer, the quantity, purchase mode and the timing of the purchase. For buying an expensive product, besides the brand and the retailer, the consumer is more interested in knowing about the payment mode as to whether it can be made through credit card or debit card or equal monthly installment (EMI) on credit card or finance through a bank or consumer finance company like Bajaj Finance.
In India, in the two-wheeler, four-wheeler and consumer electronics category, the financing mode through bank or finance company or EMI on credit card is very popular and thus important for the company.
5. Post Purchase Behaviour:
Once you come out watching your favourite movie say Ghajini or Kites, from a multiplex, you come out telling your friend or family member that you liked the movie or you say, you disliked the movie and sometime you say its paisa wasool. What does this mean in Marketing? This is called the post purchase behaviour of the consumer. The behaviour results from consuming the product and the resultant satisfaction that the consumer gets.
The buyer’s satisfaction is a function of the closeness between the buyer’s expectations and the product’s perceived performance. Once the buyer’s satisfaction meets the perceived performance, the buyer is satisfied or the buyer is dissatisfied. In case of exceeding expectation, the buyer may be delighted.
The companies should try to delight their customers. Otherwise, dissatisfied consumers will stop buying the product and take an exit option or the consumer can go for Voice option warning friends and acquaintances.
Besides the post purchase use of the product, the disposal of the product is also important for the socially responsible companies like Nokia. Nokia’s ‘Take Back and Recycling Awareness Campaign’ campaign is meant to save the environment through recycling e-waste.