CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
Consumer Analysis Project
Purchase of a KIA Sorrento
Submitted to: Deborah Sauer
Submitted by: Shannon Kim, Jessica Lau, Dana Roblin
11/17/2010
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Table of Contents
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................... 2
About the Consumer.......................................................................................................................................... 2
Individual Decision Making ............................................................................................................................ 3
Problem Recognition ..................................................................................................................................... 3
Information Search ........................................................................................................................................ 4
Evaluation of Alternatives .............................................................................................................................. 5
Product Choice .............................................................................................................................................. 6
Outcomes .......................................................................................................................................................7
Buying and Disposing ......................................................................................................................................... 8
Antecedent States: ........................................................................................................................................ 8
E-Commerce: ................................................................................................................................................. 9
Purchase Environment: ................................................................................................................................ 10
Post-purchase Process: ................................................................................................................................. 11
Summary and Conclusion................................................................................................................................. 12
Appendix A....................................................................................................................................................... 13
Appendix B .......................................................................................................................................................15
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Introduction
For the purpose of this report, our primary source for collecting information was through conducting a
one-on-one survey with our consumer who played an integral part in the research and decision making process
of her recent vehicle purchase for her family. Our secondary form of research that we used was the internet,
utilizing the information provided for us on KIA’s company website, and also some references to other
automobile company websites for competitor information and comparison.
The structure of our analysis has been broken down into two main sections, individual decision making
and buying and disposing. Within the individual decision making process, we have examined our consumers
decision making process from problem recognition, to information search, to evaluation of alternatives, to
product choice, and finally to the outcome. Following our exploration of our consumers decision making
process, we will go into detail about factors that our consumers had to consider about her buying and
disposing requirements.
About the Consumer
Our interviewee for this assignment is 22 year old Anna Huynh, a 4th year Bachelor of Business
Administration student at Capilano University. Anna is currently attending school full-time while working parttime at Shaw Communications Inc. Although Anna’s ethnic origin is Chinese she can only speak conversational
Chinese because she lived in Vietnam when she was younger, however, because she lived in Vietnam, she is
able to speak fluent Vietnamese. Before moving to Vancouver at 8years old, Anna lived without her parents in
Winnipeg and Manitoba. Since moving to Vancouver, Anna has continued to reside within British Colombia
and has lived around the Lower Mainland for the past 14 years. She is currently single and living at home with
her family.
Our consumer purchased her vehicle on Tuesday, November 9th, 2010 at Kia Vancouver located at 396 SW
Marine Drive in Vancouver. The vehicle she purchased is a white 2011 Kia Sorrento SUV, with all-wheel drive.
Her KIA Sorrento has a 3.5L V6 engine; it has 276 horsepower at 6300 rotations per minute and 248 pounds per
foot of torque at 5000 rotations per minute. The SUV came with 18” wheels and has the capacity to hold 7
people. Our consumer has chosen the vehicle with an automatic transmission. She has purchased her vehicle
with the fully-loaded package which includes, leather seats, moon roof and a GPS system. For simplicity
purposes, we will address Anna as ‘our consumer’ for the remainder of this analysis. If you wish to contact on
consumer with questions, she is available through phone at (604) 561 – 0515 or by e-mail at
annahuynh@my.capilanou.ca.
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Individual Decision Making
Typically, the more expensive, infrequent, and unfamiliar a product is, the more extensive the problem
solving process will be for the consumer. To any consumer, buying a vehicle would be considered a large
purchase which normally requires a realistic amount of research and a rational perspective about each of the
types of vehicles the consumer is taking into consideration for their purchase.
This section will outline and highlight the steps required for a consumer in the decision making process
for the purchase of a high-involvement product. We will break down our consumers purchase into the five
steps, purchase decision, information search, evaluation of alternatives, product choice, and outcomes,
explaining in detail our consumer’s decision making process for her purchase.
There are three perspectives on decision making which are as follows, rational perspective, behavioural
influence perspective, and experimental perspective; In the case of our consumer, she did not use a
behavioural influence perspective, as the purchase was too important and expensive, nor did she use an
experiential perspective. Instead our consumer utilized a rational perspective by applying a simple ranking
system (ranking vehicles from best to worst) as it was best fitting for her situation.
The purchase of our consumer’s vehicle was not an impulse purchase, in fact, our consumer had been
searching for a vehicle since February 2010 and perceived buying a vehicle to be a big risk both socially and
economically. Our consumer was not influenced by purchase momentum in her decision as she took a very
practical stance and stayed within her budget.
In order to collect the extensive internal and external
information that was required for her information search, she implemented the use of extended problem
solving. More importantly, because the purchase of a vehicle requires high-involvement our consumer thought
extensively about the purchase, the searching process, and committed a lot of time into her decision making
process.
While her buying decision behaviour for the vehicle was extensive, choosing the vehicle’s color was left
to limited problem solving. She used a cognitive shortcut of choosing her vehicle color; go with the easiest
color to keep clean, which she believed was white. Habitual problem solving did not take place in our
consumer's decision making process as the consumer did not make any decisions unconsciously or
automatically.
Problem Recognition
Our consumer's current purchase was due to a response from her previous vehicle’s mechanical
problems and old age, which subsequently was the trigger to her problem recognition. The problem that arose
with our consumer was that fact that she was sick of her old vehicle and wanted a newer and nicer one. Since
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she was exposed to better quality vehicles daily, this consequently moved the consumer's ideal state upward
and opportunity recognition occurred.
Our consumer was in her ideal state with her previous vehicle before it started having problems.
However, when the previous vehicle's transmission started to malfunction, our consumer’s state shifted from
ideal to actual as she began to recognize her problem. Opportunity recognition occurred, as our consumer
became exposed to new vehicles, as she realized that as time had changed, so had her taste in the appearance
of her vehicle, which ultimately increased her want to buy a more visually appealing vehicle than the previous
one. Primary and Secondary demand is not relevant in this case. Our consumer did not require encouragement
to use a vehicle as she has owned one since she obtained her license. In terms of being persuaded to use a
specific brand, the consumer was focused on budget which depicted her brand choice.
Information Search
Once our consumer's problem had been recognized she was motivated to make the best purchase
decision she could, so she began her pre-purchase search for specific information on different types of vehicles
that she would take into considering for her purchase. Our consumer did not feel the need to engage in an
ongoing search to keep up with current information; she was not involved with a specific brand of vehicle and
she did not feel an impulse to buy right away. Before beginning her search, our consumer already had an idea
of what vehicle she wanted to purchase, and what specific requirements she wanted fulfilled. While she had an
idea of the brand of vehicle she wanted, she did not have enough information in her memory to evaluate the
alternatives effectively, therefore, she complemented her existing knowledge with an external search including
friends, family, dealers, consumer reports and online
Our consumer had experienced directed learning from her previous vehicle, however, for her purchase
and most of the information that she had acquired was through incidental learning. She also observed the
different types of vehicles people had and the ones in commercials as well as talking with her family members.
As a new info shopper, our consumer turned to the internet to conduct her own research where she looked at
consumer reports, dealership websites and customer reviews. Since the purchase of her vehicle was not a
symbolic item she still took her time and to ensure her external search was thorough. Her searching process
would have probably been easier if Pontiac was still in operation as her previous vehicle was a Pontiac and her
family had initially wished to stay with the same brand, unfortunately, they had to switch brands because
Pontiac is no longer operating.
In terms of the type of vehicle, she was interested in variety seeking as she had previously owned a van
and as her needs had change, felt that an SUV would be more fitting now. Biases in the decision-making
process that may have occurred include, mental accounting and sunk-cost fallacy. Fortunately our consumer,
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during her mental accounting, she posed the purchase as a gain, as she was excited about having a new vehicle
and all the perks that come with it. The consumer's old vehicle however, was a sunk cost and cannot be
reversed. The consumer realized this and instead of sinking more money into the old vehicle she figured she
would put that money towards a new vehicle.
Normally, search activity is greater when the purchase is important and there is a need to learn more
about the purchase, this applies to our consumer's level of search activity because our consumer also places
great value on her own style and image. In addition younger, educated, female consumers have a tendency to
search more.
As a result of our consumer's extensive search, there were also perceived risks. In our consumer's case,
the most prominent perceived risk that resulted from her search was psychological and monetary risk. After
the purchase of her vehicle, she felt very guilty because of the high price tag involved; she later wished that she
would have bought a less expensive vehicle. Additionally, she also had functionality and social risks, as she is a
very practical consumer and she is self conscious that her friends might not approve of her choice of vehicle.
On the other hand, she did not perceive any physical risk when making her purchase decision because she
understood that all vehicles were similar in safety and therefore it was not a factor in her information search.
Evaluation of Alternatives
Since our consumer went through extended problem solving, she ended up evaluating several different
brands; If Pontiac was still in business then she may have gone through a habitual decision where few to no
brands were considered. In any case, she identified all of her alternatives before making her purchase decision.
First, she identified her alternatives from her evoked set which included the brands from her retrieval set, the
Ford Edge, Acura MDX and Kia Sorrento and brands that were prominent in her environment like, the Honda
CRV, and BMW x3. She also identified that Hummer’s were a part of her inert set; however, she did not
consider buying one. There were certain brands that our consumer disliked and avoided including, Mercedes,
Honda, Toyota, and American cars, these brands were a part of our consumer's inept set. The vehicles in the
consumer's evoked set share similar features; they’re all SUV’s. The consumer was conscious of what people
might think about purchasing a Kia because of the "cheap" image which it has been grouped into, however, the
positioning of Kia as an affordable vehicle is why the consumer considered it in the first place and subsequently
entered it into her evoked set of alternatives. In the general category of SUV's, the consumer thought that Ford
and Kia were budget brands whereas BMW and Mercedes were expensive brands. More specifically, the latter
two are examples of exemplar products in the category of SUV's whereby they call the shots and define the
evaluative criteria of what an SUV should have. While it may be confusing to some consumers as to why Kia
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carries SUV’s, since it is most known as a brand for small vehicles, to our consumer she recalled Kia as
affordable and unique in its niche position in the market.
Product Choice
For our consumer, the final decision was made almost immediately after she finished assessing the
value of her alternatives. There were three decision rules that contributed to our consumer’s ultimate product
choice, prior experience, present information and beliefs about the brands. Our consumer had heard about
KIA vehicles, and had seen the actual vehicle she was considering to purchase on the streets before, though she
had no prior knowledge about the vehicle’s specification. However, through her previous vehicles, she did
know what needs and requirements she wanted the new vehicle to fulfill.
At the time of purchase, our consumer had already conducted extensive research about the vehicle she
wanted to purchase, KIA Sorrento, and had compared it to her top three preferred alternatives. Another factor
that helped our consumer to make her final decision, on which brand of vehicle she was going to purchase, was
the knowledgeable and helpful management team, who offered special incentives for her purchase.
Even though during her research process and at the time of purchase, our consumer had only been
presented with mostly negative word-of-mouth from her friends and peers about the KIA, mainly concerning
the company’s image that it had acquired throughout the years of having bad quality products and lack of
longevity, she still felt that KIA’s SUV best fit her needs. Also, with the help of KIA’s effective advertising
campaign that promoted its sleek designs and fuel efficiency, our consumer was persuaded to go against what
the majority of her peers suggested and gave KIA a chance based on her external research and KIA’s
advertising. Another factor that contributed to our consumer’s purchase was her belief that all cars have the
potential for longevity as long as the vehicle has proper maintenance; she felt that if she was able to provide
the appropriate maintenance the vehicle required then it would help to out-stand the odds.
Our consumer’s main evaluative criteria consisted of, the number of seats, the physical appeal, the gas
per mileage, the price/financing, and the user friendliness of the vehicle. It was crucial to her that these factors
were fulfilled with the purchase of her new vehicle because these factors were not fulfilled by her previous
vehicle. It is safe to say that because KIA had met and exceeded these criteria’s that our consumer purchased
the vehicle she did. The determinant criteria that our consumer used are shown in Appendix B.
A heuristic belief our consumer had was that a more expensive vehicle meant that the vehicle was
better quality and more value in the purchase, because it was a recognized brand. Our consumer, however, did
not heavily weight this heuristic belief when making her final decision, because of two reasons; she was on a
budget and did not consider the value of owning a vehicle with a recognized name, as an essential requirement
in her purchase.
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Our consumer did not let her heuristic beliefs or the market beliefs about the brand influence her
purchase, although she did take them into consideration. Overcoming heuristic and market beliefs is a very
difficult task, conversely, following heuristic and market beliefs can lead to bad decisions because of
assumptions made about the brand. Conversely, our consumer made sure that her purchase was made with
her beliefs in mind, and not the influence of other people’s beliefs.
For our consumer, Zipf’s Law does not apply, because she was not influenced by whether KIA was the
number one SUV brand or not, she was only looking for her needs to be fulfilled. Our consumer had
mentioned that her and her family members would have been influenced by consumer inertia, had Pontiac
remained in business.
Although in most situations inertia is affected by offerings that are better and can get a consumer to
switch, in our consumer’s situation, the switch was not caused by better offers by other companies, but
because Pontiac had gone out of business and our consumer was left with no choice.
Brand loyalty did not play a role in our consumer’s final decision, although her SUV has similar traits to a van,
capacity wise, they are two different products. Also, because our consumer had an emotional attachment to
her previous vehicle, she was able to bypass this factor and purchase her SUV because it is a better fit for her
current needs. Our consumer definitely participated in Compensatory Decision rules because she stated that
she went through a pro’s and con’s fix to help her see if the negative factors for each vehicle were fixable, and
to see which of her options had more positive factors than negative, in her case KIA’s Sorrento outweighed the
competition.
Outcomes
Since our consumer’s purchase was a high-involvement purchase, our consumer spent a year of
planning and research, therefore, her purchase occurred very recently. Since it had taken extra long for her
purchase to occur, longer than she expected, it is hard to really judge her final outcome because she has not
had her product long enough for her to be opinionated about her purchase, or to have post-purchase
decisions. However, as of now, our consumer is enjoying her purchase, as it meets her need requirements, and
has no complaints.
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Buying and Disposing
There are many factors involved in purchasing a product and it is likely that the more expensive the
product gets, the more complicated the purchasing factors will be. Factors such as the antecedent states the
consumer was in when deciding on the purchase as well as the purchase environment can greatly affect the
consumers’ decision to buy or not. In addition, factors such as the post-purchase process can greatly affect
consumers’ satisfaction level, which in turns affect the long-term relationship the consumer has with the
product or brand.
Antecedent States:
Antecedent states include factors such as situational effects, usage context, time pressure, mood and
shopping orientation. There were a few situational factors that affected our consumer’s purchase; one of these
factors was the perceptual effect and her perception of being pressed for time. Our consumer felt the urgency
and pressure of purchasing the SUV due to the specific occasion of replacing her family’s old and run-down
1999 Pontiac van; this purchase was tailored to fulfill a specific need and purpose.
Another situational factor that affected her purchasing decision was the time the purchasing decision
took place. She went to the dealership near the dealership’s closing time and it made her feel more anxious
and eager to make up her mind, especially since she has been anticipating this purchase since February 2010.
This factor, along with the perception of being pressed for time affected her to rush through the decisionmaking process without fully arranging and discussing the financing details before putting down her deposit.
Our consumer’s role in her family also played an important part for her decision making, she is the
oldest of three kids, with two younger sisters aged 17 and 20. The fact that our consumer and her siblings are
grown up affected her purchase decision because this is how the usage context made an impact in her
decision-making. The situation made her think about the role she plays within the family, which is the oldest
sister who is in charge of taking care of her family, helping with the decision making and paying for the vehicle.
Our consumer recognized that her family no longer needed the benefits of a van anymore and thought it would
be more practical to have a 7-seat SUV instead. By understanding her current role as the oldest and she no
longer being a kid affected her choice of car to purchase.
The physical surrounding affected her purchasing decision as well. From appearance, the showroom
environment appeared to have a very open layout, great presentation of the cars, clean and was filled with the
aroma of new car smell. These observations gave her a feeling of trustworthiness; she didn’t feel like the
dealership was going to lie to her and that made her feel comfortable. She felt that if the dealership had a bad
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environment, it would negatively affect the store image, which would give her a bad impression and affect the
store’s trustworthiness.
Through her shopping experience, she found that social surroundings affected her purchasing decision.
One of the dealerships she went to was not busy; the salespeople were too comfortable in their surroundings
and didn’t provide her any customer service. The importance of salespeople and customer service for
purchasing decisions will be explored further later in the purchase environment section.
Our consumer has a strong belief that time is money and should not be wasted therefore time
definitely played an important role in her purchasing decision. She felt that she had spent a lot of time
researching for the car and spoke with a few different dealerships so our consumer felt that she already
exhausted a lot of time with the process and was getting the time poverty feeling. In addition, as mentioned
earlier, our consumer visited the dealership near the closing time so she also felt a little pressured to make a
decision quickly, resulting in the negligence to go through all the finance details. Her psychological perception
of the time also affected her mood, which had an effect in her purchasing decision.
When our consumer was at the dealership, her moods were excited, eager and anxious and based on
the Dimensions of Emotional States diagram, these feelings are in the arousing and pleasant dimensions and
affected her purchasing decision. One of the temporal factors mentioned by our consumer was that she has
been researching for so long and seems to have gotten more anxious as she got closer to making her purchase
and this affected her in rushing through her purchasing decision when she was in the dealership. Some of these
positive feelings were affected by our consumer’s psychological condition but also with the dealership’s
surrounding, purchasing environment and the customer service, which will be discussed later.
Our consumer’s shopping orientation normally falls into the apathetic and economic consumer
category because she does not enjoy shopping and would only shop if necessary and therefore is a rational and
goal-oriented shopper. With the purchase of the SUV, she is categorized as an economic shopper because she
mentioned this purchase is a commitment for at least 4 years of her life so she needed to ensure she
rationalized and looked at all the options she had.
E-Commerce:
Our consumer used E-Commerce and traditional media to assist her with her purchasing decision; she
researched online through the Internet, different dealers’ websites, consumer reports and newspaper. Through
the online research, she was able to obtain important information to help her compare and contrast different
brands, dealerships, promotions and vehicle options without leaving her home. Our consumer found the
websites to be useful in the sense that it helped her get the information she wanted, and helped narrow down
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her options at the time convenient for her. This was important because due to her busy schedule, her
availability to visit a dealership was limited.
Although websites and online research has many advantages, there are also limitations. For example,
our consumer was not able to figure out, understand and discuss the finance plan with anyone online. Also, she
could not physically see, touch or test-drive the vehicle online. For her confidence, she needed to try out the
vehicle first before purchasing due to the expensive price tag and limited return policy. Lastly, through online,
she was not able to negotiate the purchase price with anyone. With these limitations in mind, she did not make
the purchase online; she felt that it was necessary to speak with and clarify the details with a salesperson first.
Purchase Environment:
As mentioned earlier, the store’s physical appearance and the image it portrayed greatly affected our
consumer’s purchasing decision. The Kia Vancouver dealership our consumer visited had a showroom
surrounded with clear glass; the store appeared organized and open. The ambiance of the showroom gave her
a feeling of comfort while looking around and exploring different options. When she visited the dealership, the
only people around were an older couple, salespeople and the manager. She felt the dealership had a
personality of being straight forward, honest and up-front which made her feel that the salespeople were not
beating around the bush and would not waste her time. The appearance of the store gave our consumer the
feeling of trustworthiness.
All of the salespeople at Kia Vancouver seemed very friendly and were very attentive affecting her
perception of the experience and purchase decision. The specific person, who helped her, appeared to be a
newer salesperson so she felt that the knowledge he provided her was equivalent to what she had already
researched. Even though, he was not able to provide additional information, the customer service he provided
was great and this was the exchange of value between our consumer and the salesperson, which ultimately
played a vital role in her purchasing decision.
Our consumer felt that with a purchase that cost more than $40,000, it is extremely important for the
customer service to be excellent. Even though the salesperson could not provide any value in regards to
additional knowledge, she received assistance from the manager, and therefore decided to purchase the Kia
Sorrento from that dealership. The manager’s knowledge, open and straightforward selling style helped the
purchase process; she felt that his style demonstrated to her that no time would be wasted when dealing with
him and this helped push our consumer with the purchasing decision. To show the importance of salespeople
and customer service in the success of a sale, it is important to note that our consumer visited another
dealership, where she experienced unsatisfactory customer service and consequently left that dealership with
no further consideration of that brand.
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Our consumer’s purchase of the SUV was a planned purchase since February 2010 but it was undecided
in terms of the location of purchase. Our consumer’s father tried to contact the salesperson who he bought the
Pontiac van from to see if that salesperson could assist them with the sale; however, our consumer and her
dad were unable to locate that salesperson since Pontiac is no longer in business. When our consumer was
negotiating the terms with Kia Vancouver, there was a point of purchase stimuli that pushed her to purchase
the SUV from there; it was the salesperson who offered to throw in an additional keyless entry device. This
point of purchase stimuli is worth about $600 and helped push and encourage our consumer to purchase from
this dealership. It was an incentive for her and her family as they were planning to buy this additional device
regardless.
Post-purchase Process:
Nowadays, it is not enough to just provide great customer service during the decision making and
purchasing process, companies need to provide excellent post-purchase satisfaction as well. With our
consumer’s purchase, there was not a lot of information regarding her post-purchase satisfaction because she
only purchased the SUV less than one week ago and has not received the SUV yet. Thus, she has not had the
opportunity to drive the SUV to gauge if it meets the quality expectations.
Our consumer is very satisfied with the dealership; she feels the dealership is being responsible in
contacting and updating her to the SUV delivery progress. Three days after her purchase, the manager called
her to notify her that the SUV did arrive; however, it did not meet the promised qualities Kia has for their
customers and therefore he ordered another SUV that meets the promised qualities. These qualities include:
brand new Kia, not a demo model, less than 30km driven, and smells of a new car. With the manager’s followup call, our consumer feels that Kia is being very responsible and she feels reassured with her purchase.
Even though the manager ensured our consumer’s quality expectations of the SUV, there is
dissatisfaction in her post-purchase. One of the reasons our consumer visited this dealership in the first place,
was because she saw a promotional advertisement for this dealership offering “zero percent interest for 48
months financing.” Upon closer inspection of the advertisement, she felt it was a little deceiving and is still
finalizing the financing details. Through her continual discussion with the dealership, she feels that she is being
pressured to arrange to have 60 to 72 months financing plan instead of taking advantage of the 48 months.
Our consumer feels a little dissatisfied because she feels the dealership has used the “zero percent interest for
48 months financing” as a way to bait her and other customers in. In addition, there seems to be a lot of time
conflict with the financing department so she’s been wasting a lot of time going back and forth dealing with Kia
regarding the financing plan.
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Our consumer and her family decided to permanently dispose of their Pontiac van because they
recognize the van is getting old and not functioning properly. This is not easy for our consumer and her family
because they grew up with this van and shared many memories, including family trips. Our consumer states
that it is difficult to part with the van and she would miss the van but she and her family also recognize that all
the family members are grown up now and would need to move on to something more practical to their
lifestyles. The dealership has helped our consumer and her family with the disposal process by allowing her to
trade-in the van for an amount of money to use towards their new SUV.
Summary and Conclusion
Throughout this research analysis, we have outlined the steps that consumers take in purchasing a
high-involvement product, SUV. Our Consumer first recognized a problem when her vehicle at the time started
to malfunction, she then participated in an extensive information search to determine her best alternatives,
following that she evaluated her alternatives taking into consideration the value she would receive for her
purchase in comparison to the cost. After evaluating her alternatives, she chose her ultimate choice, KIA
Sorrento, because its pro’s outweighed its con’s, and was satisfied with the outcome of her purchase decision.
We then took a look at buying and disposal factors, including antecedent state and situational factors
like the time of the day the purchase occurred and how these factors affected how our consumer felt. Another
aspect that we mentioned in this portion of our report was the importance/irrelevance of e-commerce, as our
consumer is from generation-y, also considered a new-info-shopper, she did turn to the internet for
information, but there is only so much information an individual can derive from the internet when making a
purchase with a product that requires high-involvement. Another factor we talked about was the purchase
environment and how the ambiance and presentation of the retail location had an impact on the ultimate
purchase, and how our consumer is an economical consumer. Finally, we mentioned our consumer’s postpurchase process and how she was pleased to see that the people at the dealership called her a few days after
her purchase to make sure that everything was okay.
To conclude, after our thorough analysis of our consumer and her purchase of her new 2011 KIA
Sorrento, we were able to effectively apply concepts from Consumer Behaviour to a purchasing decision with a
high-involvement product. Through this assignment, we were given the opportunity to explore the purchasing
decisions of another individual, other than ourselves, and we were shown how different individuals can have
similar and diverse purchasing decisions and criteria’s.
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Appendix A
Chapter 9 Questions
1. When did you purchase your vehicle?
2. What is the description of your vehicle you recently purchased?
- Features including: colour, standard or automatic, make, year, price, upgrades
3. Why did you purchase it?
4. What type and brand of vehicle did you have before?
5. Did you weigh the pros and cons before buying the vehicle? Or was it an impulse buy or on sale?
6. Did you purchase the vehicle from the same dealership?
7. If the current purchase is different than the previous one, ask why they didn't purchase the same type and brand as
before
8. Did you research before buying this vehicle?
9. What kind of information did you use for this purchase?
10. Before researching, did you already have a vehicle in mind?
11. Did you talk to family members and friends in your research stage?
12. Who did you talk to about the purchase?
-Did you go online to research. ex. customer reviews, dealership website, consumer reports.
- What other means did you go through for information?
13. How long had you been searching for?
14. Did you see someone with the same vehicle before buying it. For example, family or friends.
15. How knowledgeable about this vehicle were you?
16. Did you consider what other people might think of your vehicle choice?
17. Did you think there were risks involved in your purchase?
-Was the purchase complicating or hard to understand was it risky because of the high price?
-Were you concerned about possible social implications regarding the vehicle you purchased?
-Was the safety of the vehicle high on your list? Safety was not a major factor
18. What were the types or brands of vehicles you were considering before your final purchase?
-were you considering several different brands? Or only a few brands?
19. What were the brands of vehicles you had heard of but didn't know too much about?
20. What brands of vehicles did you dislike and purposely avoid?
21. What brands did you see over and over again?
22. Were there any brands in particular you thought of that fits the type of car you want (exemplar
- products, for example: if people think of big and, strong SUV, Hummer comes up)
23. Did you consider any brands because they were unique, different or unusual? What brand?
24. What were some factors/criteria you considered for your purchase decision?
25. From the last question, were some of those criteria more important in helping you make your decision?
26. Prior experience: Have you or your family use/own this similar brand before?
27. Present information: What type of current information did you use when you were making the purchase? Beliefs about brands: Do you have some beliefs about this product prior from the purchase?
28. Do you have any mental rules of thumb with your decision
29. Do you have some market beliefs before making your purchase? (E.g. Brand: the brands who are having discount/sales
must be doing so to get rid of its slow-moving or low quality merchandise?
30. Do you think the country of origin for the product affected you? Did you not choose or not choose a brand due to its
country of origin? (Stereotype: German cars are supposed to be strong and
reliable)
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31. Were there any incentives for buying the specific brand or vehicle? Example, a sale
32. While deciding on your vehicle, were you ever in a situation where you thought that if you bought a more expensive
car, it would mean it was a better quality car?
33. Did you make any assumptions about your car based on the brand of the car? (E.g. hummer is for safety, mustang is
for speed)
37.Were you satisfied after you purchased your vehicle? Were there any feelings of regret?
Chapter 10 Questions
38. Did environmental factors influence your purchase eg. Being environmentally friendly, hybrid cars?
39. Some vehicles offer additional safety features, how important was this to you?
40. Was it within your purchase?
41. Does the service from salespeople influence your purchase/not purchase?
42. How comfortable were you with the amount of personal information salesmen requested? Did it affect your purchase?
43. How important was customer service?
44. Was the staff pleasant and knowledgeable?
45. Did color play a role in your purchase? How important are colors in that would you have looked elsewhere if a specific
color was unavailable?
46. Did the specifications and number of options affect your purchase? Eg. Navigation, heated seats, leather seats
47. Was there a particular occasion (or situation) for the reason of your purchase?
48. What was the usage context of your purchase?
49. Did any physical surroundings influence your purchase decision? (décor, odor, temperature, music)
50. Did any social surroundings influence your purchase decision? (crowded vs. quiet)
51. Did you feel rushed to make your purchase decision/Did you feel you had enough time to make your decision?
52. Did you think the whole process took too long/ Did you think that time was being wasted?
53. Did you have to wait long until you were helped?
54. What state of mood were you in when making your purchase decision? Did you feel that had an effect on your
decision?
55. Was the purchase an impulse buy? Was it unplanned? Did you have a commercial friendship with the sales person?
56. Was there any POP stimuli when you made the purchase?
57. Which type of shopper would you say you are? Economic, personalized, ethical, apathetic or recreational?
58. Did you seek online services to help you make your purchase decision?
59. If yes, were there any limitations to the services/information offered online??
60. Did you consider purchasing your vehicle over the internet? Why or why not?
61. Did the atmosphere of the physical store influence your purchase decision? ex. lights, colors, scents, or music
62. Did the dealership have a good store image? Was there a personality of the store?
63. Was there a return policy in place? Was there credit available?
64. What was the interior design of the store like?
65. What types of people were in the store?
67. Were your expectations of the vehicle met? Or were you promised qualities that did not deliver?
68. After using your product, did you feel dissatisfied with anything?
69. If so, how did you try and correct your dissatisfaction?
70. How will you dispose of your vehicle when the time comes? ex. sell it, give it away, trade in
15
Appendix B
Car brands BMWMDX
Evaluation
Criteria
KIAFORDSorrento Edge
Gas mileage
3
1
2
7-seat
1
1
3
User friendly
2
1
3
Price
3
1
1
Interior/ exterior
3
1
2
V6 ( strong
engine)
1
1
3

1 = yes, 2 = sort of, 3 = no