Consumer Decision Process - created from Mind Map

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1. Problem Recognition

How consumers recognize the problem.

Examples Malfunction of a current purchase

Prompted in a variety of ways

Examples A desire for new things based on exposure to advertisements

2. Information Search

3. Evaluation of Alternatives

Example: Undertaking extensive fieldwork where the consumer consults a variety of sources to amass as much information as possible from a variety of sources

Examples: Scanning memory to determining what has been done to resolve the problem in the past

The way products are mentally grouped influences which alternatives will be considered, and some brands are more strongly associated with these categories than are others (i.e., they are more prototypical).

Used to simplify decision making:

4. When the consumer eventually must make a product choice from among their evaluation of alternatives, an number of decision rules may be used.

Alternatives were developed in the search stage

These alternatives make up that individuals 'Evoked Set' (Members of the evoked set share similar characteristics)

Evaluative Criteria - dimensions used to judge the merits of competing options

Heuristics - mental rules of thumb

In particular, people may develop many market beliefs over time. One of the most common beliefs is that price is positively related to quality.

Other heuristics rely on well-known brand names or a product's country of origin as signals of product quality

When a brand is consistently purchased over time, this pattern may be due to true brand loyalty or simply to inertia because it's the easiest thing to do.

Noncompensatory decision rules eliminate alternatives that are deficient on any of the criteria the consumer has chosen to use.

Compensatory decision rules, which are more likely to be applied in high-involvement situations, allow the decision maker to consider each alternative's good and bad points more carefully to arrive at the overall best choice.