Question

What are the five stages of the consumer decision-making process? Select a social influence and describe how it may impact the process.

Answer 1

Consumer decision making is the process in which consumers are identify their needs, collect information about products, evaluate substitutes and take final purchasing decision. Generally this process done by business leaders to understand the consumer behavior and to estimate the future demand of their products.

This process mainly consist of 5 steps, those are

RECOGNIZATION

In the first step, we should understand the correct need of the consumer because need is the most important element in the buying process. We can say that it is important part of the demand. If we understand the needs of the target market, it will useful to make best decisions. It is important to get profits and estimate demand of the product. It is important to buyer and marketers.

Collect information

At present consumers are very talented and they gather all related information about product before going to buy it. They clearly understand the positive and negative impact of buying process. They are getting lots of information from different sources like social media, advertisements, TV, paper, friends, relatives etc. so marketers should concentrate on promotions and quality of products.

Check available alternatives

At present, in the market we can see different alternative products. If a company introduce unique product, its competitors also produce same type of product within short period. In this step, consumers are check all the available alternative and evaluate each product and take best decision

Purchase decision

In this stage, consumer decides on buying process, purchase a product or service based on their needs and wants

Evaluation after purchasing

Purchasing is not a limited process, after purchasing a product or service consumer will understand about that product or service completely. If product is good and they are satisfied with product, they will continue it for long periods. If not they will not see that product again.

     There are different people who influence the consumer purchasing behaviors

       Those are influencers, prosumers and personas.

     Here let us consider influencers, in the market there are different influencers who influence the consumer decision making process like pages, social media like Twitter, Facebook here every product having reviews and comments, it will influence the consumers buying decisions