Marketing Intelligence

A consumer is that person who is engaged in the consumption process. The behavior of consumer denotes that activities at both mental and physical level that reflects the totality of consumer decisions with regard to acquisition, consumption and disposition of products or services (Best, 2014). In this assignment an understanding about the consumer behavior will form the basis of study of different market segments.
Stages in purchase decision making process.
In the purchase decision making process, customers have to go through five such stages which are very essential for making marketing related decisions. These stages are: * Need Recognition * Information Search * Evaluation of alternative * Post Purchase Evaluation
The whole process of purchase begins from the first stage of need recognition which points that need or problem like hunger which derives him to go for purchase. Desire can also be the deriving factor for the customer such as the aroma of a chocolate muffin can attract a customer to buy it. In second stage of information search customer tries to obtain information about the market from various means like from family, friends, neighbors or advertising or retailers or by testing (Blas, 2012). If the need of customer is strong enough then he does not go for searching information and rather buy the product or service close to hand. The next stage is evaluation of alternative in which the customer choose between the available alternative brands, products or services by using the information gathered in the second stage. When the evaluation process is done with then customer goes for purchasing the product or service. In the final stage of post purchase evaluation it depicts the feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the customer with the purchase. In case of satisfaction, customer prefers to stick to the