Ch. 6 - Consumer Decision Making

One of the most important key factors to take into consideration is how the consumer makes decisions. People do not decide overnight what they are going to buy because there a lot of thought and processing need to occur. Another aspect to understand when a customer buys a product, is how they react and behave in order to make decisions. Decision making will help in understanding what best suits their needs and, in turn, also helps the company out to better serve in the modern market. When making a decision on whether to purchase something or not, the consumer will follow the "consumer decesion-making process" and go from there.

Consumers camping out in front of the Apple store to purchase the IPhone 7

When buying such expensive products and investing large amounts of money into it, consumers will generally follow the "consumer decesion-making process".

I have recently bought an unlocked iPhone 7 plus for my father on his birthday.  In order for me to purchase it, I used the following steps for my decision:

Needs Recognition - This is the first and most important part in the purchasing process. If there is no need of the product you want to buy, then there is no purchase necessary. This recognition happens when there is brief halt between the actual situation and the ideal desired situation. For instance, now a days electronics have become more of a necessity for consumers, especially the iPhone. This serves as a benefit to Apple because of its popularity, new innovations and sleek new design concepts. All of which catches the attention of many people. As a result this makes them feel that they are obligated to purchase the latest Apple products. 

Information Search - The second process is searching up information for the intended product they want to buy. The information can either be internal or external. However, when most people view on purchasing Apple products, they rely on internal information. This means majority of people rely on their experiences with Apple products in order to know if they will purchase from Apple again. Apple consumers become loyal to the company when their personal experience with Apple is a positive one. On the other hand, external information usually comes from advertisements and recommendations from other consumers (side note: Apple consumers are so loyal to the company that they will believe anything Apple advertises and recommends).

Evaluation of Alternatives - Apple is very popular and number 1 in the electronics business. Therefore, consumers use information to evaluate alternative brands in the product category. This can give the consumer a comparison between two different brands. 

Purchase -  The fourth step is purchasing. This is the process that Apple is an expert at. They gain huge revenue in sales up to billions of dollars each year on their new generations of products.  

Post Purchase Behavior - This is the final step consumers usually take in deciding on buying something. Consumers will have certain expectations and outcomes on their purchases. How well these expectations are met determines whether the consumer is satisfied or dissatisfied with their purchase. For instance, when we purchase a product we all have high expectations that must be upheld. When your expectations are not upheld, then that we were not completely satisfied with the product and service provided. As a result, the company may have potentially lost a customer. However, if the expectation succeeds and meets satisfaction, the consumer will be happy. They will remain a loyal customer and will definitely come back to make further purchases.