Buyer Decision Process

Now that we have looked at the affect that influence buyers, we are prepared to look at how consumers make buying decisions. Given figure shows that the buyer decision process consists of five stages: need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, and post purchase behaviour. Obviously, the buying process begins long before real purchase and continues long after. Marketers have to focus on the whole buying process instead than on just the purchase decision.

The figure implies that consumers pass through from the all five stages with every purchase. But in more routine purchases, consumers frequently skip or reverse some stages. A woman buying her regular brand of toothpaste would identify the need and go right to purchase decision, skipping information search and evaluation. still, we use the model in Figure because it indicate all the considerations that arise when a consumer faces a new and complicated purchase situation.