Consumer Decision Making

(As a marketer your job is to sell your products, in order to be successful at it you must know you customer as deep as possible. Consumer decision making refers to the many ways a customer can act before and after buying a product and how marketers can adapt their marketing mix and planning according to the desires and needs of customers. Before a customer buys anything they can undergo a series of 5 steps that begin with a need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase, and post purchase behavior; these five steps are not always performed in order. The consumer decision making proses is shaped  by social, psychological, cultural, and individual factors. All customers are different but in all the differences you have to find similarities based on the way they go about making the only decision that is important to you; their decision to buy.)

.Targeting Your Customer Efficiently.

"iPod, If you don't have one you are a loser"

    You can go out and buy an mp3 player for a fraction of the price that an iPod cost, but why don't you? Apple manages to charge us hundreds of dollars for their products because they have successfully marketed their product to us.(by "us" I refer to any one who owns an iPod of any generation) They are definitely not the low cost competitor in the market but they have surely learned how to promote their product's efficiency and beauty.

    The consumer decision making process begins by us recognizing something that we want and don't have. 
   
   For example if you are walking down the street and you see the advertisement on the right that reads "iPod, If  you don't have one you are a loser" then a need for an iPod is created because nobody wants to be a loser. Specially if all your friends have an iPod and you are the only one that doesn't. Apple can already be know brand to you and you have heard lots of great things about it but you'll need to find out more about iPods to see which model satisfies your needs and your pocket. Then you will go on and research and ask your friends about their iPods and find out that there are 4 types of iPods that range from $50 to $250, you can only afford a shuffle. You go out to one of the Apple stores and you end up buying the iPod Touch for $229 wasting all the money you have saved for your mother's birthday present. 

    You have decided to buy the iPod based on the fact that your friends told you iPod are great but in case you didn't notice Apple also pushed you to buy by minimizing your cognitive dissonance also know as doubts. Apple gives you a one year limited warranty that you ca see at http://images.apple.com/legal/warranty/docs/ipodisight.pdf . There you can see that Apple guarantees replacement of any product if there are any factory malfunctions. The Genius bar in every Apple retail store helps you if you have any problems or questions regarding your device. This gives you a sense of security when you go buy an Apple product. 
      

        You come home with your brand new iPod and you decide that you did the right thing because you got the best iPod there is and all your friends will be jealous.Then you start feeling guilty about wasting money that you needed for something else. You decide to ignore those thoughts and think to yourself that buying  the iPod has been the best decision you ever made.
  
     Your decision was affected by your morals and values, maybe if you feel bad enough you'll return the iPod the next day. Most of us display our belongings to try to establish our status and help our self esteem. We also block out thoughts that go against what we want to believe, that's called selective distortion. 
         In conclusion, we buy the iPod and not buy a cheap MP3 player because Apple has  successfully understood the process every buyer goes through buying a new product. With that understanding they have targeted all different types of people and made our decision a little easier.