Understanding Customer
Behavior
Chapter 5
The Purchase decision Process

5 Stages
The Purchase decision Process
1.Problem Recognition: Perceiving a need
Perceiving a difference between a person’s ideal
and actual situations big enough to trigger a
decision
o In marketing: activating a consumer’s decision by
showing the shortcomings of comepeting or
currently owned products
o
The Purchase decision Process
2. Information Search: Seeking Value
i.
Internal search
consumer’s memory of pervious products or brands
for frequently purchased products
ii.
External search
need when: insufficient past experience/knowledge
high risk of making a wrong purchase
low cost for gathering info.
primary sources of external info.
Personal sources
Public sources
The Purchase decision Process
iii.
Marketer-dominated Sources
Examples: advertising, company website, salespeople, etc.
The Purchase decision Process
3. Alternative Evaluation: Assessing Value
consumer's evaluation criteria
objective attributes
subjective attribute
The Purchase decision Process
4. Purchase Decision: Buying Value
i.
From whom to buy
terms of sale, consumer’s past experience buying
from the seller, and the return policy
purchase decision; simultaneous of both product
attributes and seller characteristics
ii.
When to buy
sales, store atmosphere, pleasantness or ease of
shopping experience, time pressure, and financial
circumstances
The Purchase decision Process
5. Postpurchase behavior
Customer dissatisfaction
Product deficiency
Too high expectations
(dis)satisfaction affects consumer’s value
perceptions
(dis)satisfaction affects consumer
communications and repeat-purchase
behavior
Consumer Involvement and ProblemSolving Variations
Three general variation in the customer
purchase decision process:
Extended Problem Solving
2. Limited Problem Solving
3. Routine Problem Solving
1.
Consumer Involvement and ProblemSolving Variations
1.
Extended Problem Solving
Each of the 5 stages of the consumer purchase
decision process is used
o Considerable time & effort devoted to search
for external info. and identification/ evaluation
of alternatives
o High-involvement purchase situations
o
Consumer Involvement and ProblemSolving Variations
2.
Limited Problem Solving
Purchase situations in which the consumer has
little time or effort to spend
o Examples: choosing a toaster, a restaurant, etc.
o
Consumer Involvement and ProblemSolving Variations
3.
Routine Problem Solving
The purchase process is virtually a habit
o Low-involvement decision making
o Low-priced, frequently purchased products
o
Psychological Influences on Consumer
Behavior
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Motivation and Personality
Perception
Learning
Values, Beliefs, and Attitudes
Consumer Lifestyle
Psychological Influences on Consumer
Behavior
1.
Motivation and Personality
1-1. Motivation:
o
o
The energizing force that stimulates behavior to satisfy a
need
Hierarchical needs
1-2. Personality:
o
o
o
o
A person’s consistent behaviors or responses to
recurring situations
A consumer’s personality guides and directs behavior
Key traits
Self-concept , actual and ideal
Psychological Influences on Consumer
Behavior
2.
Perception
2-1. Selective Perception:
o
•
A filtering of exposure, comprehension, and retention
Selective exposure: people pay attention to the messages
that are consistent with their attitudes and beliefs and ignore
the message that is not
•
Selective comprehension: interpreting info so that is
consistent with the consumer’s attitudes and beliefs
•
Selective retention: consumers don’t remember all the info
they see, read, or hear.
Psychological Influences on Consumer
Behavior
2.
Perception
2-2. Perceived Risk:
o
o
Represents the anxiety felt because the consumer
cannot anticipate the outcomes of a purchase but
believes there may be negative consequences
The greater the perceived risk, the more extensive the
external search is likely to be
Psychological Influences on Consumer
Behavior
3.
Learning
3-1.Behavioral Learning
The process of developing automatic responses to a
situation built up through repeated exposure to it
o Drive, cue, response, and reinforcement
o Use of two concepts of behavioral learning theory in
marketing
Stimulus generalization
o
Stimulus discrimination
Psychological Influences on Consumer
Behavior
3.
Learning
3-2. Cognitive Learning
o
o
o
Making connections between two or more ideas or
simply observing the outcome of other’s behavior and
adjusting your own accordingly
Through message repetition
Advil and pain relief
Psychological Influences on Consumer
Behavior
3.
Learning
o
Brand Loyalty
Learning relates to habit formation
o Close link between habits and brand loyalty
o Reduces risk and saves time
o Brand loyalty for many commonly purchased products
o
Psychological Influences on Consumer
Behavior
4.
Values, Beliefs, and Attitudes
4-1. Attitude Formation
o
o
Attitude: a learned predisposition to respond to an
object or a class of objects in a consistently
(un)favorable way
Shaped by our values and beliefs
Psychological Influences on Consumer
Behavior
4.
Values, Beliefs, and Attitudes
4-2. Attitude Change
o
Using three approaches to change consumer attitudes
toward products and brands:
i.
Changing beliefs about the extent to which a brand has
certain attributes
Changing the perceived importance of attributes
Adding a new attribute to the product
ii.
iii.
Psychological Influences on Consumer
Behavior
5.
Consumer Lifestyle
A mode of living that is identified by how people spend
their time and resources, what they consider important
in their life, and what they think of themselves and the
people around them
o The analysis of consumer lifestyle: Psychographics
o Psychographics: the practice of combining psychology,
lifestyle, and demographic, is often used to uncover
consumer motivation for buying and using products and
services
o
Psychological Influences on Consumer
Behavior
5.
o
Consumer Lifestyle
The VALS System
• Ideals-motivated groups
• Achievement-motivated groups
• Self-expression-motivated groups
• High-and-low-resource groups
Sociocultural Influences on Consumer
Behavior
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Personal Influence
Reference Groups
Family Influence
Social Class
Culture and Subculture
Sociocultural Influences on Consumer
Behavior
1.
Personal Influence
1-1. Opinion Leadership
Individuals who exert (in)direct social influence over
others
o 10% of U.S. adults
o Using celebrities as spokespersons
o Promoting products in media believed to reach opinion
leaders
o More direct approaches
o
Sociocultural Influences on Consumer
Behavior
1.
Personal Influence
1-2. Word of Mouth
Influencing people during conversations
o Most powerful and authentic information source for
consumers
o 67% of U.S. consumer product sales
o Teaser advertising campaigns, advertising slogans music
and humor
o Negative rumors
o Magnified by internet
o
Sociocultural Influences on Consumer
Behavior
2.
Reference Groups
o
People to whom an individual looks as a basis for selfappraisal or as a source of personal standard
o
Influence the info, attitudes, and aspiration levels that
help set a consumer’s standards
o
Influence the purchase of luxury products but not the
necessities
o
Membership group, Aspiration group, Dissociative group
Sociocultural Influences on Consumer
Behavior
3.
Family Influence
3-1. Consumer Socialization
o
Children learn how to purchase
interaction with adults in purchase situations
their own purchasing and product usage
experience
o
Brand preference at the age two
Sociocultural Influences on Consumer
Behavior
3.
Family Influence
3-2. Family Lifecycle
o
Each phase, unique identifiable purchasing behaviors
Sociocultural Influences on Consumer
Behavior
3.
Family Influence
3-3. Family Decision Making
o
Joint decision making: most decisions are made by both
spouses
o
Spouse-dominant decision making: either husband or wife is
mostly responsible for decisions
o
Roles of individual family members in purchase process:
1. information gatherer
3. decision maker
5. user
2. influencer
4. purchaser
Sociocultural Influences on Consumer
Behavior
4.
o
o
o
o
o
Social Class
The relatively permanent, homogenous divisions in a
society into which people sharing similar values, interests,
and behavior can be grouped
Social class determination: occupation, source of
income(not level) and education
Three major social class categories
People within a social class exhibit relatively common
values, attitudes, beliefs, lifestyles, and buying behaviors
Using social class as a basis for identifying and reaching
good prospects for their products and services
Sociocultural Influences on Consumer
Behavior
5.
o
o
Culture and Subculture
Subculture: Subgroups within the larger, or national,
culture with unique values, ideas and attitudes
In American Society
Hispanics
African Americans
Asian Americans
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