Premium Essay

The Stages of Decision-Making Process of a Shopper

In: Other Topics

Submitted By jjane95
Words 655
Pages 3
This article is the first in a series of articles about the factors and variables that influence the behavior of consumers.

The consumer is a complex individual. His purchase behavior varies greatly depending on internal and external stimuli to which he is subject. For brands, the understanding of this behavior is a major challenge in order to meet the expectations of consumers, trying to convince them to buy their products and thus, increase their sales.

Why a consumer chooses one product instead of another? What led him to prefer one brand instead of another? What are the factors that influence his choices and purchases?

Many factors come into account in consumers’ behavior and how they decide what brand or product to buy.

Today, let’s focus on the decision-making process that guide consumers in their choices of brands and products and determine their level of involvement as well as their need for information before buying a product. the decision-making process of consumers are divided into three stages

The decision-making process of consumers are divided into three stages

According to the famous model developed by John Howard and Jagdish Sheth, two famous Professors of marketing, in their “Theory of Buyer Behaviour”, the decision-making process of consumers are divided into three stages:

Extensive problem solving (EPS): It is when the consumer discovers a new product category or wants to buy a product he does not know well and / or is particularly expensive and / or which present a significant risk regarding his economical or psychological point of view. His lack of “experience” in the matter leads to his lack of decision criteria to make his choice. He has no preference for a brand or a specific product. The level of consumer involvement is high. He will invest a lot of time looking for information and benchmarks to make his choice. The

Similar Documents

Free Essay

Determinants of Cart Abandonment

...Abstract Despite placing items in virtual shopping carts, online shoppers frequently abandon them —an issue that perplexes online retailers and has yet to be explained by scholars. Here, we identify key drivers to online cart abandonment and suggest cognitive and behavioral reasons for this non-buyer behavior. We show that the factors influencing consumer online search, consideration, and evaluation play a larger role in cart abandonment than factors at the purchase decision stage. In particular, many customers use online carts for entertainment or as a shopping research and organizational tool, which may induce them to buy at a later session or via another channel. Our framework extends theories of online buyer and non-buyer behavior while revealing new inhibitors to buying in the Internet era. The findings offer scholars a broad explanation of consumer motivations for cart aban- donment. For retailers, the authors provide suggestions to improve purchase conversion rates and multi-channel management. Keywords Online shopping cart abandonment . Online buyer behavior theory. E-tail .E-commerce To more fully understand buyer behavior, it is crucial to also examine consumer “non-buying” behavior. Non- buying behavior is especially apparent in an online retailing context, where many shoppers place items in their virtual shopping carts yet do not complete the purchase—thereby abandoning their cart. Known as virtual or online shopping cart abandonment, we define this behavior as...

Words: 3821 - Pages: 16

Premium Essay

Consumer Decision Making

..."A consumer is a shopper who is sore about something." - Harold Coffin (1905 - 1981), American Humor Columnist for The Associated Press. Note on Consumer Decision Making Process is an Article by Ken Matsuno. In the article Ken has identified a five stage process by Source: Adopted from Kotler (1997), Schiffman and Kanuk (1997), and Solomon (1996). The steps in this model demonstrates the process in which consumer apply when seeking a product. The five steps of the model are: problem recognition, information search, evaluation and selection of alternatives decision implementation and post-purchase evaluation. "Even the once simple home mortgage now has so many flavors and styles and variations that it is difficult for people to make a decision." - Scott Cook, American Businessman, Co-Founder of Intuit, Inc. Problem Recognition is the stage in which the consumer recognizes a problem or a need. For example, a consumer may have an existing product that may be obsolete or it is unable to perform to the consumer’s individual need. Now this is where the consumer realizes there is a need for change or there is a new desired state. Information Search is the stage in the process where the consumer begins to seek information about products that may better serve their need and desires. Consumers may seek to ask their peers about the various products on the market or even those who may have already been through the process for a similar product. Another means of Information Search is that...

Words: 649 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Ebay - Marketing Case

...Case studY chapter  6 EBAY © iStockphoto.com/Bill Noll / © iStockphoto.com/OSTILL Creating Customers on the Move The advent of mobile commerce (m-commerce) has begun to create significant changes in the way consumers make purchasing decisions. The introduction of online shopping first began to draw customers away from brickand-mortar retailers, changing the location of where they made their purchases. The use of mobile devices has expanded the location of purchase decisions even further, so now consumers can make purchases from almost anywhere, so long as they have a mobile device with them. It also has leveled the playing field for consumers in many cases, as it allows them to comparison shop on prices of products that they might find in stores. In 2009, the mobile commerce market generated $18.3 billion in total revenue. By 2015 it’s projected to reach over $119 billion. When it comes to m-commerce, eBay has jumped in with both feet. It is estimated to hold about 3.3 percent of m-commerce, compared to online retailer Amazon’s 1.5 percent. It also was estimated to sell $1.5 billion in goods via m-commerce in 2010, compared to $600 million in 2009. eBay launched its first mobile application for the iPhone in July 2008 and has since produced 14 apps, including eBay Selling, StubHub, Deals, and Fashion. eBay’s core iPhone application has been downloaded 14 million times, and its entire stable of apps has seen over 30 million downloads worldwide...

Words: 970 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Bsa 375 Team Project

...Requirements for Kudler’s Fine Foods Frequent Shopper Program Daniel W. Burgess, Richard Rives, Darrell Crosson, Warren Johnson, and Antoin Jenkins Axia College University of Phoenix Requirements for Kudler’s Find Foods Frequent Shopper Program Introduction In an effort to maintain a competitive edge in the gourmet food industry, Kudler Find Foods will implement changes to the company’s infrastructure and overall networking capabilities to create a shopping program for our dedicated customers. A system analysis team has been created to meet this challenge led by Daniel W. Burgess, Vice President of Operations, Richard Rives, Director of Information Technology, Darrell Crosson, Director of Human Resources, Warren Johnson, IT Specialist, and Antoin Jenkins, Program Coordinator. The goal of the project is to provide our customers with the best processing methodology to complete error free transactions; generate feedback from users; and address any issues from customers by upgrading our customer service operations. The scope of the Frequent Flyer Program (Service Request Form, SR-kf-013) will entail low-level processes that focus on the business aspects of our IT department and the processes that involve a RAD (Rapid Application Development) system. The program will be able to operate on a global scale with operations in Asia, China, Japan, and South America. Upgrades to our systems will represent different approaches that streamline and improve the system...

Words: 5209 - Pages: 21

Premium Essay

Dissertation

...Factors Affecting Purchase Decision of Online Shopping Mall in Hong Kong Background and Overall Research Aim According to the global transaction service provider, PayPal (2015), predicted that the online expenditure of Hong Kong will reach 25 Billion US Dollars by 2015. The main cause of this significant growth is drive by the rise of online shopping malls. However, a report which conducted by Hong Kong Trade Development Council (Hong-kong-economy-research.hktdc.com, 2015) states that the proportion of sales through online shopping platforms are only share 7.7% of the whole e-Commerce industry, which means the online shopping phenomenon is just at the early stage, with the growing of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and Weibo (Castronovo and Lei, 2012), there is a plenty of room to grow. In order to understanding the e-commerce industry in Hong Kong, Go-Globe Hong Kong conduct a research about the e-commerce environment in Hong Kong. The main group of online shoppers are 25 to 34 years old (76.4%), while 40.5% aged between 50 to 64 years old. In 2013, there are 8.5% increase of Hong Kong residents shopping online in compare with 2011. Four out of five Hong Kong consumers use the internet to research what they want before purchasing or even purchase it online. And 49% of them are willing to spend more money on online shopping mall in the near future. With the smartphone are become more and more popular, 89% of smartphone users search a product which they desired in smartphone...

Words: 2648 - Pages: 11

Premium Essay

Kudler Fine Foods Service Request Sr-Kf-013

...Kudler Fine Foods Service Request SR-kf-013 BSA375 Business Systems Development Abstract Kudler Fine Foods, an upscale specialty gourmet foods shop with three locations (La Jolla, Del Mar and Encinitas), has an expressed interest in the development of a Frequent Shopper Program to enable enhanced information management by tracking customer-purchasing practices. The information collected regarding customer purchase behaviors through the Frequent Shopper Program will improve the quality of Kudler Fine Foods’ product lines and reduce the quantities of perishables discarded. To increase revenue and customer loyalty, and as an alternative to providing discounts, Kudler Fine Foods has partnered with a loyalty points program to offer incentives for customer loyalty in the form of high-end rewards for shopping at Kudler Fine Foods. Customers will earn points with every purchase, redeemable for high-value gift items such as first-class airline upgrades, and other specialty items (Apollo Group, Inc., 2007). Facilitating this effort will require systems planning and selection as well as current and proposed systems analysis and design, in conjunction with systems implementation and integration, training, operations, and maintenance. Kudler Fine Foods Service Request SR-kf-013 Initiatives Outline Kathy Kudler, the founder of Kudler Fine Foods, opened her first gourmet food shop in 2003. Since that time, two additional stores have opened, and other locations in Carlsbad...

Words: 7143 - Pages: 29

Premium Essay

Kudler Fine Foods Service Request Sr-Kf-013

...Kudler Fine Foods Service Request SR-kf-013 BSA375 Business Systems Development Abstract Kudler Fine Foods, an upscale specialty gourmet foods shop with three locations (La Jolla, Del Mar and Encinitas), has an expressed interest in the development of a Frequent Shopper Program to enable enhanced information management by tracking customer-purchasing practices. The information collected regarding customer purchase behaviors through the Frequent Shopper Program will improve the quality of Kudler Fine Foods’ product lines and reduce the quantities of perishables discarded. To increase revenue and customer loyalty, and as an alternative to providing discounts, Kudler Fine Foods has partnered with a loyalty points program to offer incentives for customer loyalty in the form of high-end rewards for shopping at Kudler Fine Foods. Customers will earn points with every purchase, redeemable for high-value gift items such as first-class airline upgrades, and other specialty items (Apollo Group, Inc., 2007). Facilitating this effort will require systems planning and selection as well as current and proposed systems analysis and design, in conjunction with systems implementation and integration, training, operations, and maintenance. Kudler Fine Foods Service Request SR-kf-013 Initiatives Outline Kathy Kudler, the founder of Kudler Fine Foods, opened her first gourmet food shop in 2003. Since that time, two additional stores have opened, and other locations in Carlsbad...

Words: 7121 - Pages: 29

Premium Essay

Functional Modeling

...Kudler Fine Foods Shopper Program Name(s) University of Phoenix BSA/375 Fundamentals of Business Systems Development Faculty Date Introduction Kudler Fine Food is a local upscale specialty food store. Kudler fine food opened their doors in 1998 and was profitable within the first year. In 2000 the second store opened in De Mar and three years later their third shop opened in Encinitas (Kudler Fine Foods. 2005, 2007). Each store is similarly sized at 8,000 square feet, all in fashionable shopping centers. Their menu includes bakery and pastry products, fresh produce, fresh meat and seafood, condiments and packaged food, and cheese and specialty dairy products. Kudler Fine Foods has experienced success in its stores and now wants to expand on its business processes to include a Frequent Shopper Program. According to the press release located on Kudler’s website, the program will include several benefits for customers. Scope and Goals Customers who elect to participate in the frequent shopper program will receive event notifications, featured product notifications, sale notifications, exclusive offers on different merchandise, and discounts on the cooking and wine classes held by Kudler. Benefits for Kudler will include a better overall pictures of products their most frequent customers are interested in as well as increased revenue because they will have inventory more customized to their customers. Kudler’s overall goal for...

Words: 4154 - Pages: 17

Premium Essay

Albertson S Ditches Self-Checkout in Favour of Human Contact

...17 Purchasing Process and Outlet Selection Customer satisfaction is affordable and profitable because the customer becomes your salesman forever. The selection of outlet is given due importance by the customer. The reader must understand: • The importance and dimensions of the outlet • Customer characteristics and risks involved • Influences altering brand choice • Store atmospherics CHAPTER 17 Purchasing Process and Outlet Selection 17.1 Introduction As the number of products and brands are increasing in the market, so are the retail outlets, and it becomes very confusing for the customer to choose the retail stores. The selecting of a retail store also involves almost the same process as selecting a brand. A retail outlet relates to a service or a product which caters to the consumer. The retail trade occurs from the stores, but it also occurs from catalogues, direct mail via print media, television and radio. Retailing is also done in weekly markets which are put up in different areas of a city on different days. It is also done from consumer to consumer, by means of various media. It has become very challenging and exciting, both for consumers and marketeers. The consumer may give first preference to the store or the product or, he may give equal importance to both. Sometimes, one prefers a store first, where he can get friendly and logical advice to buy the product, and prefers to buy a product/brand of second priority, if he is assured of proper...

Words: 2881 - Pages: 12

Premium Essay

Buying Behavior In Fashion Case Study

...It reduced the price of products and at the same instance expanded geographical boundaries. Online retail brought shoppers and vendors close like never earlier. By transcending geographic limitations it allowed companies to even mark those consumers who were earlier “inaccessible.” The Internet is providing a gamut of breakdowns for new advanced business representations and transactions. It also unlocked new channels for advertising professionals to better endorse their products and services. Internet Shopping Habits Globally, an online study conducted by Nielsen Global, found that approximately half of the Internet-using populace has made at minimum one online purchase. The process of online shopping behavior includes five steps: 1. The customer identifies their need for a specific product – apparel in our case 2. She refers to the Internet for additional information about the merchandise 3. She compares costs with other competitors to weigh different alternatives 4. She makes a purchase choice where she settles for a product or a brand. This stage is followed by the actual buying 5. The buyer will calculate the adequacy of the product/brand in relations of her original needs. This impacts the future buying behavior and choices of the...

Words: 1193 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Why We Buy

...that people take in the store. How people enter and move around the store, and which direction they take. By observing how customers move around, we can gear end caps and aisles accordingly to push out the products we need to sell the most. The trick is to walk the store in a customer’s shoes. It’s been proven that people tend to enter a store and take the direction they typically drive on. It’s extremely important to understand this concept when planning out displays. It’s very important for people to find what they’re looking for immediately. Customers don’t want to have to search high and low to find the product they need. A big mistake retail companies make is stacking products to make it easier for the employees rather than making it easier on the customers. A large part of the book described the need for speed. Customers don’t appreciate long wait times, especially at the checkout counter. The checkout counter should be efficient and quick. It’s been proven that customers get frustrated with long wait times...

Words: 3384 - Pages: 14

Free Essay

E-Commerce

...Decision Support Systems 24 Ž1998. 29–43 An empirical study on consumer acceptance of products in electronic markets: a transaction cost model Ting-Peng Liang ) , Jin-Shiang Huang 1 Department of Information Management, National Sun Yat-sen UniÕersity, Kaohsiung, Taiwan Abstract Electronic commerce is gaining much attention from researchers and practitioners. Although increasing numbers of products are being marketed on the web, little effort has been spent on studying what product is more suitable for marketing electronically and why. In this research, a model based on the transaction cost theory is developed to tackle the problem. It is assumed that customers will go with a channel that has lower transactional costs. In other words, whether a customer would buy a product electronically is determined by the transaction cost of the channel. The transaction cost of a product on the web is determined by the uncertainty and asset specificity. An empirical study involving eight-six Internet users was conducted to test the model. Five products with different characteristics Žbook, shoes, toothpaste, microwave oven, and flower. were used in the study. The results indicate that Ž1. different products do have different customer acceptance on the electronic market, Ž2. the customer acceptance is determined by the transaction cost, which is in turn determined by the uncertainty and asset specificity, and Ž3. experienced shoppers are concerned more about the uncertainty...

Words: 7508 - Pages: 31

Premium Essay

Business

...INTERNET SHOPPING AND ITS IMPACT ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR MSc INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS By Fayu Zheng 2006 -1- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research is the final dissertation for MSc International Business at the University of Nottingham, during the summer term of 2006. Firstly, I would like to thank Vicky Story for her invaluable support, guidance and availability throughout the course of this project. In addition, I would like to thank all the participants for sparing the time to take part in the questionnaire. Finally, I would like to express my love and appreciation to my parents, Juxiu Zheng and Yangfang Wang, and also my fiancée Wei Jiang for their supports in the past few years. -2- ABSTRACT The main goal of the paper is to obtain quantitative evidence describing the actuality of internet shopping in the case of the UK and China in order to explain the development of internet shopping and its impact on consumer behaviour. The paper builds on the relevant literature and at the same time examines consumer behaviour by questionnaires. Furthermore, the future development of internet shopping will be measured, and a deep comparison of consumer behaviour between these two countries is also analysed. To reach those objectives a co-integration analysis and quantitative research methods are used to identify all aspect of the internet shopping and impact on consumer behaviour. The data results obtained revealed in the paper support the research questions...

Words: 17161 - Pages: 69

Premium Essay

Kudler Fine Foods

...Kudler Fine Foods is currently implementing a system to track customer purchases through the intranet. Since the recent growth Kudler is now focused on expanding their services to increase revenue.  Sales and marketing are seeking to target a large customer base by offering a loyalty program by offering several incentives for returning customers and a specialty-cooking seminar where customer will participate with a world-renowned chef, local celebrities and other experts. Sales and marketing predicts this will increase customer purchases rate as well as increase sales in the revenue per visits and increase the frequency of visits to the store. This not only boost sales but contribute to word-of-mouth marketing. The customer base has increased dramatically so our sales and marketing team decided that their customer should have an incentive with the loyalty points program. By providing loyalty point for specialty items rather then every day low pricing like lower end markets. This provides customers the incentive to build points to be redeemed for high-end gifts items, airline first-class upgrades and other specialty items. As the customer base grows Kudler Fine Foods must gain more data base software to maintain the best systems for tracking sales and security for a growing corporation in order to stay competitive. Some security concerns that must be addressed, security of social engineering concerns that malicious individuals gain access to customer demographic data including...

Words: 2317 - Pages: 10

Premium Essay

Shopper Marketing

... by Jia Chen Peapod: The e-version of shopper marketing Overview In Sorensen’s “Inside the Mind of the Shopper” book, I explored some of the key features from the shopper purchase behavior, the quick trip, three moments of truth for the shopper, in-store “migration” patterns, and how to put products in the path of customers through anticipatory retailing. I also looked at how manufacturers and retailers could collaborate better in shaping flow and adjacency to sell more products in stores. With the development of new digital technology, the penetration of the online browsing, and the conveniences to compare products, more and more customers begin to choose to do the grocery shopping by click-through internet on their personal computers or smartphones. Peapod is one of the online retailer that allows us to study the click-click-click shopper behavior resemblance to what we studied on the physical store. Founded in 1989 by brothers Andrew and Thomas Parkinson, Peapod has grown from a small family-run shopping and delivery service in Illinois to America's leading Internet grocer, delivering more than 23 million orders across 24 U.S. markets. Sorensen’s key concepts application 1. Shopper kinds In Sorensen’s book, we has learned about the three kinds of shoppers: Quick trips-These shoppers spend a short time in a small area, with a relatively slow walking speed but high spending speed. A third of all...

Words: 1842 - Pages: 8