Summary

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

(This is a situation when the consumers do not have well-known criteria for evaluating a product category

or specific brands in that category.

It also happens when the consumers did not narrow the number of brands they will consider small or

manageable).Limited problem solving (At this level, consumers have already established the basic

criteria for evaluation the product and brands in this category.

They gather additional brand information to differentiate between the varieties of brands). Routine

response behavior (This is the level in which the consumer has some experience with the product

category and a well-established set of criteria with which to evaluate the brands they are considering.

Summary

Consumers search small amount of information or are satisfied with what they already know).

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

economic view (It is the process of making rational decisions), the passive view (In this view the

consumer is compliant to self-serving interests and promotional efforts of marketers), the cognitive view

(In this view the consumer is a thinking problem solver because he is interested to searching for

products and services that fulfill his needs and enrich his life) and the emotional view (This view focuses

on the fact that the feelings and the emotions of the consumers play an important role in their decision

making.

When a consumer makes an emotional purchase decision the emphasis is placed on his current mood

or feelings).

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 stage (affects the consumer's

recognition of a product need and consists of two major sources of information.

These two sources are:

The firm's marketing efforts: This includes the product itself, the product price, the promotion of the

product, and where it is sold.

Summary

The external sociological influences on the consumer such as family, friends, neighbors, culture,

and social class, 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.