CONSUMER DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

Consumer Decision-Making Process

Impact of the Internet on the Five Stages of the CDM Process

Understanding how consumers make purchase decisions has long been a central issue among consumer behaviour researchers. Over the years, research and theory on the consumer decision making (CDM) process has focused squarely on the problem of choosing a most preferred brand from a set of several alternative brands that all belong to the same product category. By analysing and modelling the CDM processes, this assists marketers and academia in providing insights into choice processes, as well as being instrumental to feasibility and impact assessment, user-oriented design and management decisions.

This multistage model pioneered a century ago by John Dewey and later elaborated by Engel, Blackwell, and Kollat, illustrates the consumer's initial process of recognising a need. This need is then followed by the stages of searching for information and constructing consideration sets of alternatives, evaluating the alternatives, making the purchase, and finally evaluating the consumptive experience as can be depicted in below figure.

Figure: The Consumer Decision Making Process Model

The impacts of Internet on the five stages of the CDM model are subsequently discussed in brief.

Need Recognition

What are ways that Internet marketers are attempting to trigger consumers' recognition of needs? What are some things that Amazon [www.amazon.com] or Easy Jet [www.easyjet.com] are doing to activate need recognition?

During the first stage, the consumer recognizes a need that can be satisfied by a purchase. Commencing with the first stage of the CDM process, it is believed that the recognition of a need/problem initiates the decision making process. As a result, making it possible for the consumer to generate a consideration set of alternatives, which in turn allows for selection.

Internet marketers are attempting to trigger the need recognition of consumers by three different ways:

Advertising through Web Banners on different websites

Publishing of URLs on different physical materials available online

Newsgroup Discussions

Amazon.com does not spend huge amount on publishing its ads on different websites but in one way or the other is using all three things mentioned above. It is utilizing different strategies to market itself, like:

It is freely proffering different products and services.

It is using strong partner relation

Amazon is mainly relying on the pay per click (PPC) advertising. They have bought the left panel space of the Google and when visitor clicks on the advertisement, it directly takes that visitor to its website.

Search for Information

How can the Internet provide information for consumers? Which of the sources can the Internet influence? What impact does the information available at sites such as Auto Trader [www.autotrader.co.uk] have on consumers' alternative search?

Once consumers realize a need, they begin to search for potential ways to satisfy that need. There are many primary sources of information, such as internal, group, marketing and public. Through gathering information, the consumer learns more about the brands that compete in the market place and their distinct features and characteristics. There are two forms of methods, traditional methods (i.e. searching for information through magazines, television advertisement and car dealerships, etc) ...