The theories of consumer decision-making process believe that the consumer’s purchase decision process consists of steps through which the buyer passes in purchasing a product or service. However, this may not be the case. Not every consumer passed through all these stages when making a decision to purchase and in fact, some of the stages can be skipped depending on the type of purchases.
The reasons for the study of consumer’s helps organisations improve their marketing strategies by understanding issues such as:
- The psychology of how consumers think, feel, reason, and select between different alternatives (e.g., brands, products);
- The psychology of how the consumer is influenced by his or her environment (e.g., culture, family, signs, media);
- The behavior of consumers while shopping or making other marketing decisions;
- Limitations in consumer knowledge or information processing abilities influence decisions and marketing outcome;
- How consumers’ motivation and decision strategies differ between products, that differ in their level of importance or interest that they entail for the consumer.
- How marketers can adapt and improve their marketing campaigns and marketing strategies to more effectively reach the consumer.
Howard-Sheth decision making is the most quoted of all consumer behaviour models is the Howard-Sheth model buyer behaviour, which was developed in 1969. The model is important because it highlights the importance of inputs to the consumer buying process and suggests ways in which the consumer orders these inputs before making a final decision. The Howard-Sheth model is not perfect as it does not explain all buyer behaviour. It is however comprehensive theory of buyer behaviour that has been developed as a result of empirical research (Horton, 1984).
The central part of the model deals with the psychological variables involved when the consumer is contemplating a decision. Some of the variables are perceptual in nature, and are concerned with how the consumer receives and understands the information from the input stimuli and other parts of the model. For example, stimulus ambiguity happened when the consumer does not understand the message from the environment. Perceptual unfairness occurs if the consumer distorts the information received so that it fits his or her established needs or experience. Learning constructs category, consumers’ goals, information about brands, criteria for evaluation alternatives, preferences and buying intentions are all included. The proposed communication between the different variables in the perceptual and learning constructs and other sets give the model its distinctive advantage.
Outputs- The outputs are the results of the perceptual and learning variables and how the consumers will response to these variables (attention, brand comprehension, attitudes, and intention).
External Variables- Exogenous variables are not directly part of the decision-making process. However, some relevant exogenous variables include the importance of the purchase, consumer personality, religion, and time pressure.
The decision-making process Howard-Sheth model tries to explain, takes place at three Inputs stages: Significance, Symbolic and Social stimuli. In both the model emphasises on material aspects such as price and quality. These stimuli are not applicable in every society. While in social stimuli the model does not mention the basis of decision-making in this stimulus, such as what influence the family decision? This may differ from one society to another.
Stimuli
- significative
The 'real' (physical) aspects of the product or service
- symbolic
The ideas or images attached by the supplier
- Social
The ideas or images attached to the product by society, such as reference groups.
· Outputs
· Constructs
- Perceptual
Obtaining and handling information about the product or service.
- Learning
The process of learning leading to the decision itself
Blackwell’s model was created to describe the increasing, fast-growing body of knowledge concerning consumer behaviour. This model, like in other models, has gone through many revisions to improve its descriptive ability of the basic relationships between components and sub-components, this model consists also of four stage:
First stage: decision-process stages
The central focus of the model is on five basic decision-process stages: Problem recognition, search for alternatives, alternate evaluation purchase, and outcomes. But it is not necessary for every consumer to go through all these stages; it depends on whether it is an extended or a routine problem-solving behaviour.
Second stage: Information input
At this stage the consumer gets information from marketing and non-marketing sources, which also influence the problem recognition stage of the decision-making process. If the consumer still does not arrive to a specific decision, the search for external information will be activated in order to arrive to a choice or in some cases if the consumer experience dissonance because the selected alternative is less satisfactory than expected.
Third stage: information processing
This stage consists of the consumer’s exposure, attention, perception, acceptance, and retention of incoming information. The consumer must first be exposed to the message, allocate space for this information, interpret the stimuli, and retain the message by transferring the input to long-term memory.
Fourth stage: variables influencing the decision process
This stage consists of individual and environmental influences that affect all five stages of the decision process. Individual characteristics include motives, values, lifestyle, and personality; the social influences are culture, reference groups, and family. Situational influences, such as a consumer’s financial condition, also influence the decision process.
This model incorporates many items, which influence consumer decision-making such as values, lifestyle, personality and culture. The model did not show what factors shape these items, and why different types of personality can produce different decision-making? How will we apply these values to cope with different personalities? Religion can explain some behavioural characteristics of the consumer, and this will lead to better understanding of the model and will give more comprehensive view on decision-making.
Experiment
I tested perception for myself by doing an experiment to see the effect on people by using different brands without the testers knowing. The two chocolates I was putting on test was Tesco Value milk chocolate and Cadbury’s dairy milk.
Gestalt Psychology – a stimulus is said to be ambiguous when it does not correspond to an immediately recognisable shape or form. We need to find a context in order to interpret it. Used widely in advertising E.g. Cadbury’s well known brand and only associate it with quality. Despite having a lot of competition on the sheves it is one of the most likely to be picked.
The experiment I tested was two different types of chocolates one lower value and one higher. I wanted to see if they could TASTE the difference between the two I had five volunteers. The volunteers had to be blind folded so they didn’t know which one they chocolate they was tasting and try to see if they knew what which one taste the best value for money. I blind folded the testers because the packing was not similar. The Tesco value brand was 28p and the Cadbury’s Dairy Milk was £1.09. All the volunteers were aged 18-20 and occupation was students testing both male and females. The first person to test was a male 20years of age I first gave him the Tesco value chocolate then after one minute I then gave him the Cadbury’s chocolate his result was that the Cadbury’s was better for value. The next individual was a female aged 19 I gave her the chocolates and she said that the Tesco value brand was better than the Cadbury’s. The next was another male aged 18 I gave him the chocolates the result was that Tesco was better because “it tasted better less sugar”. The next person was a female aged 18 after she tasted both she said they she preferred Tesco because “it tasted more like chocolate than then other”. The last was a male aged 20 I gave him the Tesco Value chocolate he seemed to have good taste buds as he said they taste like it’s a similar product.
The propensity for Curiosity-motivated behaviour is equated with the desire for information and knowledge (McAlister and Pessemier 1982; Steenkamp and Baumgartner 1992). This is expressed, for example, by the preference to go on a shopping spree, to discuss planned or effected purchases in detail with friends, and a curiosity-driven interest in an improved level of knowledge about different products or brands (Raju 1980).
References
http://www.churcher.com/FOSM/foundations-of-senior-management-10013.htm
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7398/is_3_36/ai_n32059081/
2 comments for this post
wow - great to see all the extra reading and research you are doing on this - make sure you reference everything fully though