Introduction

An important concern of the marketers is the consumer's decision process to purchase or not to

purchase a product or service.

The sales of the product are an implication of the efficiency of the strategy of the marketers to develop

their products.

The strategy of marketers is either an efficient one, or a poorly planned one.

The decision making process model is important for any person making marketing decisions. It helps

marketers to consider the whole buying process rather than just the purchase decision.

There are some factors that affect the decision making process. These factors can be the consumer's

demographic, social and psychological characteristics. The decision making process model implies

that customers pass through many stages in every purchase.

These stages are including the relevant internal psychological processes that occur at each stage such

as motivation, perception, attitude formation, integration and learning.

There are three distinguished specific levels of consumer decision making. Extensive problem solving,

limited problem solving and routine response behavior.

There are also different models that represent the consumers and their decision making processes: the

economic view, the passive view, the cognitive view and the emotional view.

Introduction

The decision making process is viewed as a model that focuses on how consumers make decisions.

This process is viewed as three distinct connected stages: the input, the process and the output stage.

The input stage affects the consumer's recognition of a product need. The process stage of the model

focuses on how consumers make their decision. The psychological factors innate in each individual

affect the consumer's recognition of a need, the pre purchase search of information and, the evaluation

of alternatives.

These psychological factors are motivation, perception, learning, personality and attitudes. The output

stage consists of two closely related post decision activities.

These two activities are the purchase behavior, and the post purchase evaluation. This topic will analyze

and evaluate thoroughly the different stages of the decision making process.