Buyer Decision Making Process
Buyer Decision Making Process
Buyer Decision Making Process
2. Information Search
Information search is done to know about product or service, price, place and so on. In
the process of decision making, the consumer engages in both internal and external
information search. Internal information search involves the buyer identifying
alternatives from his memory. Internal information search is sufficient for low
involvement products or services. For high involvement product or service, buyers are
more likely to do external information search. The amount of efforts a buyer put in
information search depends on various factors like market, competition, difference in
brands, product characteristics, product importance, and so on.
3. Alternatives Evaluation
At this step the buyer identifies and evaluates different alternatives to choose from. It is
not possible to examine all the available alternatives. So, buyer develops evaluative
criteria to narrow down the choices. Evaluative criteria are certain characteristics that
are important to buyer such as price of the product, size, colour, features, durability, etc.
Some of these characteristics are more important than others. To narrow down the
choices the buyer considers only the most important characteristics.
4. Purchase Decision
The earlier mentioned evaluation step helps the consumer in arriving at a purchase
intention. In the decision evaluation stage, the consumer forms preferences among the
brands in the choice set. The consumer may also form a purchase intention and lean
towards buying the most preferred brand. However factors can intervene between the
purchase intention and the purchase decision. A buyer who decides to execute a
purchase intention will be making up to five purchase decisions brand decision, vendor
decision, quantity decision, timing decision and payment-method decision.