Buying Process
The customer’s decision process represents numerous stages that the buyer will go through before making the final purchase. The customer’s buying decision process is very much similar to the organizational buyer decision process. The main purpose of the decision process is to purchase the valuable thing according to the need in terms of best quality and price (Hill, Gardner, 1987).
While buying anything from the market, the first thing which comes to my mind is the need of it, I then think about the brand or product that I require to fulfill my need, I then overlook for the alternative that I can purchase as well, After that I chose the best I can get at the best price. Factors that affect my purchasing decision is whether the product is economically affordable or not, and which product offers the best quality in the market.
The Buying process can be elaborated as the series of steps,
There are some other factors that may affect the customer’s purchase, these factors may include marketing promotions, financial conditions, personal favorites, group guidance and buying power (Rajala, Tidström, 2017).
Let’s take an example of buying a new smartphone. The first stage to buy a smartphone is your need, you need access to the internet and other social applications that are only compatible with the smartphones. Then there comes value to your money, you need to analyze which brand you’re going to choose such as Android, iPhone or Windows phone. So the second stage is where you take suggestions from your friends or visit any local cellphone store. As a customer, you might visit a cellphone store to complete the stage three. At stage four, the selection of product is made and you choose what suits best to you according to your needs. Stage five involves the post-purchase evaluation. If the product seems to satisfy your need then the evaluation is positive, else negative. If you are pleased with the product specifications, you will tell your friends about the product which will influence the stage two and will help them when they decide to buy a new smartphone.
References
Hill, R. P., & Gardner, M. P. (1987). The buying process: Effects of and on consumer mood states. ACR North American Advances.
Rajala, A., & Tidström, A. (2017). A multilevel perspective on organizational buying behavior in coopetition–an exploratory case study. Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, 23(3), 202-210.
Shimazu, H. (2001, August). ExpertClerk: navigating shoppers’ buying process with the combination of asking and proposing. In Proceedings of the 17th international joint conference on Artificial intelligence-Volume 2 (pp. 1443-1448). Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc.
