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The behaviors involved in making a purchase.

According to research, there are five stages, which are involved in the process of decision making before one makes a purchase. The consumer buying decision making process model is beneficial to anyone who wants to make a purchase. The result is that those involved in marketing the product know how to influence purchases rather than the process of buying. In this case, the product being bought is a plasma television set. One has to make an informed decision before they buy the product. Furthermore, there are many brands of plasma televisions on the market, thus one has to buy depending on many factors (Armstrong and Kotler, 2010).

Customers who want to make purchases pass through almost all of the stages depending on the purchase they are making. A lot of deliberation and thought is involved when making decisions for purchasing a plasma television. Need recognition is the first step in the model for making decisions for purchase (Armstrong and Kotler, 2010). The person must have a need for wanting to make a purchasing decision. For example, they might want to buy the plasma TV because their old TV does not work. The other reason could be that the person wants to have a TV that is currently in the market.

Information needs to be obtained by the consumer regarding the various TV’s that exist in the market. Depending on the urgency of the product to be purchased, a decision can be made at this point (Perner, 2011). However, since the product is plasma TV, the customer visits several information centers regarding the product. They include; commercial sources such as retailer, advertising, Personal sources such as neighbors and friends, among other sources. The information sources are influence and are useful to the customer depending on the plasma TV being bought. Personal sources have been found to be a favorite among customers and mostly through ‘word of mouth’. Marketers should identify the target market they think will obtain the information they are providing.

At the stage of evaluation, there are various services, products and alternative brands that the customer has to choose. The customer must make sure that the information obtained is used in a beneficial manner (Learn Marketing. Net, 2011). Product involvement must exist between the product and customer. This means that the choices presented such as Samsung, Sony, and LG TV’s must be well thought of. The customer should choose a brand that is of personal importance and relevance to them. Extensive evaluation is carried out if there specific aspects of the plasma TV that the customer wants to purchase.

After all vital decisions have been made, the customer finally makes a decision on whether to purchase the product or not. At the purchasing stage, the plasma TV is purchased after making relevant evaluations. Purchases, which exist, are either high or low involvement. The latter has evaluation processes that are comprehensible and the former has difficult processes of evaluation. Marketer should find strategies to ensure that they positively influence the decision making process of customers (Learn Marketing. Net, 2011). For example, they might make some aspects of the product more visible and easy to use. A plasma TV should have clear instructions and this will make a difference to customers who want to buy the product.

In conclusion, the final stage involves cognitive Dissonance known as post purchase. After the plasma TV has been bought, the customer might have second thoughts. They might not be sure about the purchase that they made. In the future, they might buy a different brand of a Plasma TV. Marketers should make sure that customers are happy with purchases they have made (Formulis. 2011). According to the formulis website, (2011) marketers should aim to ensure that consumers are aware of the benefits of various products. Customers should not have to struggle to find information regarding product. Thus, the consumer buying purchasing model provides useful information that needs to be known.

Work Cited

Armstrong, G. and Kotler, P., 2010. Marketing an Introduction 10th Ed. New York : Pearson Higher Education.

Learn Marketing. Net. 2011. For Marketing Learners Globally Consumer Buying Behavior, [online] Available at HYPERLINK “http://www.learnmarketing.net/consumer.htm” http://www.learnmarketing.net/consumer.htm [Accessed 25 November 2011]

Formulis. 2011. Consumer Buying Behavior: Understanding Five Stages of the Buying Process, [online] Available at http://www.formulis.com/blog/las-vegas-marketing/consumer-buying-behavior-understanding-five-stages-of-the-buying-process [Accessed 25 November 2011]