The Buying Process

Introduction

The goal of most companies is to get people to buy their product. Products are made with the peoples interest in mind. Unfortunately, most businesses often force their customers through the company's selling process instead of supporting the customer's buying process. Online shopping has changed the world on how we do our shopping. I have done this research with Amazon, a service I have used many times in the last few years.

People spend millions of dollars shopping online these days, bringing the purchasing power of every person to the internet. Amazon.com became an online retailer in 2003, making over a billion dollars in sales each year. Because of this it has spawned many more online retailers now, some of them making more money than traditional stores. Many people today go to the store to look for what they want or get ideas, then go online to shop for that item once they find it in store. Many people do that because you can usually get a much better deal online. I myself do that when looking for a certain computer part, I will look for the computer part in many different stores and look for the best price all from the comfort of my home. When people make the purchase online, they are felt with a satisfying feeling knowing that they got the best price possible.(StudyMode, 2013)

The buying process decision describes the process that a customer goes through when he/she is buying a product. There are many different version of the buying process but they all share a common theme of five stages of the decision process. The stages were first introduces by John Dewey in 1910.

The Five Stages

These five stages make a good framework to evaluate customers buying decision process, but it is neither necessary that customers get through every stage, nor that they proceed in any particular order. For example, if a customer all of a sudden wants chocolate, he/she might go straight to the purchase decision state, skipping information search and evaluation.

Problem Recognition

In this model the buying process begins when the consumer recognizes a problem or need. For example, if one of my computer brakes down, I will figure out what is wrong with it and I need to buy a new part. Someone ran out of ink for their printer and is looking to buy more. A college student wants to buy a new mouse or keyboard for his computer at home or wants a brand new game for their console system. These are the kind of problems that we as consumers face every day. When we ourselves find the difference between the actual state and the desired state, a problem is recognized. And we find a problem we usually try to fix it as soon as possible. How do we do this? Well depending on the problem, most people today go online to solves their problems.

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