Good Essay About Consumer Behavior

There are five stages in consumer decision process, they include; Problem/Need Recognition a purchase cannot take place without the recognition of the need. Information Search it involves buyer’s effort to search internal and external business environments to identify what product to buy. Evaluation of Alternatives among the products that will best suit customer needs. Purchase Decision on what consumer has finally decided to buy. Post-Purchase Behavior based on consumer experience on product use .
Consumer recognizes his/her need through various ways they include for instance thirst stimulates the need for water, advertising campaigns on a property could cause a need for purchase. Physical factors e.g. need for warm clothing during winter, Social factors for instance way of dressing for women e.g. long dresses for women in conservative social systems.
Information processing steps include internal, external information search and decision making.  Internal information search refers to previous consumer experiences with a product or service. External information search is based on other people reviews of a product for instance friends, family members and other reviews. The last step is decision-making process related on either internal or external information search.
Heuristics are decision making strategies that enable people to make quick decisions without having to think about possible outcomes. They include, availability heuristic that rely on immediate information that comes to mind when making decision e.g. an individual may not board a public transport vehicle due to frequent accidents reported. Representatives’ heuristic decision is made based on representativeness example is if a particular sequence number of lottery has been winning it is representative that it will continue winning .
Purchase decision process of a house Stage 1 Need recognition: The monthly rent you pay as a tenant goes up and you opt to buy your own house. Stage 2 Information search: You search information on houses for sell in property sites that suits you. Stage 3 Alternative evaluations: You do a comparison on various houses available, those that fit your budget, locality and so forth. Stage 4 Purchase decision: After evaluating the houses available, you purchase the one that met your needs. Stage 5 Post-purchase behavior: The experience on the house you bought will influence on your post purchase behavior. The pros and cons of purchasing the house other than letting.
Family members do influence on decisions of what to purchase. Fathers mostly make decisions on investments, Grandmothers and mothers on type of food to be bought, children on holiday destinations and others.
Subculture I belong to is Asian American. Buying behavior related to the sub culture is we purchase our items mostly from our communities.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is used for classifications of various hierarchies of needs for humans. The classification from the bottom is as follows; Physiological needs, things needed for survival e.g. food, water, air, sleep. Safety needs, they include desire for protected neighborhoods, safe working environments, good health it is basically need for safety and security. Need of love and belonging best fulfilled through families, religious groups or a particular social class. Need of self esteem this relates to desire for worth and accomplishments and finally need of self-actualization where an individual is focused on fulfilling his/her full potential. Physiological needs like food, water will make an individual to buy food when hungry and water when thirsty. Individual driven by need for love or belonging will make him/her be member of a particular social class or group that he/she is being accepted.

Works Cited

Cherry, Kendra. What Is a Heuristic? 2014. <http://psychology.about.com/od/hindex/g/heuristic.htm>.
Johnston, Euan. "5 Steps to Understanding your Customer’s Buying Process." 24 June 2013. B2B Marketing. 24 February 2015.