FREE online courses on Consumer Behaviour and Motivation - Stages of Buying
Process
Generally, the purchaser passes through five distinct stages
in taking a decision for purchasing a particular commodity. These stages are:
(i) need arousal, (ii) information search, (iii) evaluation behavior, (iv) purchase decision, and (v) post purchase feelings.
(i)
Need arousal: The
buying process starts with need arousal. A need can be activated through
internal or external stimuli. A need can also be aroused by an external stimulus
such as sight of a new thing in a shop while purchasing other things.
There is two-fold significance of need arousal stage to a marketing man.
1. First the
marketer must identify the drive that might actually or potentially connect to
the product class or brand and make the buyer feel that the product can satisfy
the drive, he feels, and
2.
It also helps recognize that the need levels for the product fluctuate over time
and are triggered by different cues. The marketer can arrange cues to conform
better to the natural rhythms and timing of need arousal.
(ii)
Information search:
After need arousal, the consumer tries to solve it and gathers the sources and
information about the product. Depending upon the intensity of need, it produces
two states of individual. The first state is called heightened attention when
the consumer becomes more receptive to the information regarding the item he
needs. If a consumer needs to purchase a television, he will pay mere attention
to TV ads and the remarks made by friends and associates about TVs.
If need is more intense, the individual enters a state of
active information search and he tries to collect more information about the
product, its key attributes, qualities of various brands and about the outlets
where they are available. There are four consumer information sources.
(i) Personal
sources (family, friends, neighbors etc.)
(ii) Commercial sources
(advertisements, salesmen, dealers).
(iii) Public sources (mass
media, consumer‑rating organizations).
(iv) Experiential sources
(handling, examining, using the product).
Identifying the information sources and their respective
roles and importance calls for interviewing consumers about the sources of
information and can use the findings to plan its advertisements.
(iii)
Evaluation behavior:
Having collected the information, the consumer clarify and evaluate the
alternatives. There is, unfortunately no simple and single evaluation process
used by all consumers or even by one consumer in all buying situations. The most
current process of evaluation is to judge the product largely on a conscious and
rational basis. Various considerations form the part of judgment such as product
attributes, importance, weights, brand image, utility function for each
attribute, and attitude etc. After evaluation of various alternatives, he takes
the decision to buy.
(iv)
Purchase decision:
Evaluation behavior leads the consumer to form a ranked set of preferences.
Normally a consumer buys the article, he or she likes most but there are three
more important consideration for taking the buying decision: (a) attitude of
other such as of wife, relatives, and friends, (b) anticipated situational
factors as expected family income, expected total cost of the product and the
expected benefits of the product; (c) unanticipated situational factors as looks
or manner of the salesman or the way business is carried on.
The marketer must consider these factors and should try to
provoke the feeling of risk in the consumer And attempt to provide information
and support that will help him.
(v)
Post purchase feelings:
After buying and trying the product, the consumer will feel some level of
satisfaction or dissatisfaction and level of satisfaction depends very much on
the expectation and the product's perceived performance. If the product matches
up to his expectations, the consumer is satisfied; if it exceeds, he is highly
satisfied; and if it falls short of expectations, he is dissatisfied.
There are the following different roles that persons can play
in a buying decision:
1.
Initiator: The initiator is a person who
first suggests or think of the idea of buying the particular product. For
example, publisher of a book initiates the professor to ask the students of his
class to purchase the book. Here publisher is the initiator, the first person to
initiate the buying process.
2.
Influencer:
Influencer is a person who explicitly or implicitly has some influence on the
final buying decision of others. Students are influenced by the advice of the
professor while taking a decision to purchase a book. Here professor is the
influencer.
3.
Decider: The decider
is a person who ultimately determines any part or whole of the buying decision,
i.e., whether to buy, what to buy, how to buy, when to buy or where to buy.
Children are the deciders for buying the toys, house lady for kitchen
provisions, and head of the family for durable or luxury items.
4.
Buyer: The buyer is
the person who actually purchase. Buyer may be the decider or he may be some
other person. Children (deciders) are the deciders for purchasing the toys, but
purchases are made by the parents.
5.
User: User is the
person who actually uses or consumes the services or products.
The marketer's task is to study the buying process and its
main participants and their role in the buying process. He should initiate all
of them to make the purchases of his product at different stages and through
different strategies.
The following techniques are mainly employed for consumer
behavior research or motivation research:
1.
Experience and knowledge technique,
2.
Traditional or questionnaire technique,
3.
Depth interview technique, and
4.
Projective techniques.
1.
Experience and knowledge
technique: Under this
technique, buyers behavior is estimated on the basis of experience and knowledge
gained by the marketing executives because of their close association with the
customers. Through experience, they come to know what are the main buying
motives for their products and why?
2.
Traditional or
questionnaire technique: A questionnaire is prepared by the marketer with
the help of psychologists under this technique. The questionnaires so prepared,
are sent to the selected consumers for their return to the company after they
are duly filled in. The completed questionnaires received by the company are
analyzed and results are extracted about the buyers' motives and behavior.
3.
Depth Interview
Technique: It is the
method of probing the unconscious mind. It is time consuming technique and
requires considerable patience. Under this technique, no direct question is
asked by the interviewer but the interviewer talks with the consumer in free
atmosphere so that the interviewee may express their views intensively. It is
possible for the skilled interviewer to go deep and uncover information buried
below the conscious mind.
4.
Projective technique:
The projective technique provides the subject with a stimulus situation that
gives him an opportunity to impose upon it his own private needs and his
particular perception and interpretation. The main projective techniques are as
follows:
(i) The Thematic
Appreciation Test (T.A.T.)
(ii) The Sentence
Completion Test (S.C.T.)
(iii) The World Association
Test (W.A.T.)
(iv) The Paired Pictures Test
(P.P.T.)
(i)
The Thematic Appreciation Test (T.A.T.): This test uses a
series of pictures of people in some unstructured doubtful form of action. The
respondent is needed to see these pictures one at a time and to narrate the
story of the picture. The answers are then interpreted by an analyst skilled in
the test.
(ii)
The Sentence Completion Test (S.C.T.): Most useful and reliable
of all the indirect or projective tests is the sentence completion test. In the
motivation aspects of marketing research the test is used to uncover emotional
responses to products or marketing situations but the reliability of the
conclusion depends much on skill of the interpreter.
(iii)
The Word Association Test (W.A.T.): Here instead of a phrase of
a sentence, a single word is used. The informant is required to say immediately
what other word comes into his or her mind.
(iv)
The Paired Pictures Test (P.P.T.): In this, two persons are
shown in the pictures. For example, one picture shows a woman opening a popular
brand refrigerator and another picture shows a similarly dressed woman opening a
refrigerator of another brand. The respondents are asked to tell any story about
these two women opening the refrigerators. The difference in interpretation
tells different attitudes they have about the set of pictures.