Speaker 1: Hi friends, welcome to my channel and in today's video, let us discuss about the consumer decision making process. So whenever a consumer is buying any product or any service, he will go through the four process or four stages and then he decides whether to buy the product or not. So this process is known as consumer decision making process and the four stages or the four steps of the decision making process are identifying the needs that is need recognition. Second one is gathering information about the product that is information search. And the third step is evaluation of alternatives that is evaluating the alternative products and the fourth step is purchasing the product that is purchase decision. Apart from these four stages, there is another stage which a consumer goes through that is fifth stage after the purchasing of the product that is post purchase behavior. So now we will discuss these in detail with some relevant examples. So the first process in decision making is need recognition. So whenever you are going to buy any product or any service, the first thing is to know is that whether you need the product or not. For example, a consumer might recognize the need to be socially connected with family and friends through social media and here he decides to buy a new smartphone. Here the need is being connected with family and friends and how do you fulfill the need that is by deciding to buy a smartphone. So this is the first step in decision making process that is need recognition. So now let's move on to the second stage that is information search. So once a consumer decides to buy a new smartphone, he has to search for the information that is information about the product he is going to purchase. So in the second stage that is information search stage, the consumer will search for all the possible data with respect to the purchase he is making. Here the consumer might visit the retail outlet to check the product physically or he may browse about the product through online that is through Google or through YouTube. And he will also go through all the reviews about the product or service. Also in this stage, he will see all the pros and cons of the product or the service which he is buying and then he will make a decision to buy. In this stage, the information of the products and services can be obtained through several sources like commercial sources that is advertisements and promotional campaigns or through public sources that is through radio, newspaper, magazines or through internet or through personal sources that is these needs are discussed with family and friends who have provided the product recommendations to the buyer. Also the product recommendations can be taken from the people who already own the product and who already have the experience of using the product. So after collecting all the information about the product, the next step in the decision making process is to evaluate the alternatives that is searching the alternative products. So this step involves evaluating different alternatives that are available in the market. The evaluation can be based upon the different factors like brand, quality, price, perception or any other factors which are important to the customer. Here in this stage, the customer may compare the prices of different products and may read all the reviews of the different products and then select the best product which satisfy their need. A consumer may spend most of the time in this stage because every customer wants to find the best product. So after comparing all the alternative products, the next stage is to make the decision of buying the product. So friends, in this purchase decision phase, the customer makes the actual purchase after searching the information and evaluating the alternatives. Once the consumer has gathered all the facts including feedback from the customer who have already used the product, the consumer will make a final purchase of the product. The purchase can be made from physical store or through online by comparing the prices of both the options. So once the purchase is made, then comes the fifth stage that is post-purchase behavior of a consumer. So what can happen in this stage? Here the customer may be satisfied by the product performance or he may be dissatisfied by the product or the service. If the product purchased by the customer has matched the expectation, then he will suggest and recommend the product to other people by positive word of mouth and he will serve as a brand ambassador for the product who will recommend the product to the others. Suppose in case if the product has not served the expectation of the customer, then he will be dissatisfied with the product and he will not recommend the product to anyone and he may also spoil the brand image by giving negative feedback and thus not recommending the product to anyone. So friends these were the 5 steps in purchase decision making process which were identifying the needs, gathering information about the product, evaluating the alternative product, purchasing the product, and post-purchase behavior. So friends let us understand this concept with one simple example. Consider a customer who recognizes the need that he needs a smartphone to get socially connected with family and friends. So the consumer is aware about the need i.e. he needs a smartphone. The next step is he will gather the information about the product. Here the consumer gathers all the information about the smartphone i.e. the product specification, the operating system, and the price and he will review the product through various sources. So let us consider that after gathering all the information, the consumer is going to purchase an Android mobile. So now comes the third stage i.e. evaluation of the alternatives. So we all know that we have a plethora of options in Android mobile operating system i.e. we have all the brands like Samsung, OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo, Realme, and n number of brands. So in the evaluation stage, the consumer will consider all the factors like price, quality, and value-added features of all the brands. He evaluates all the alternative options which he has considered to purchase and then he goes to the next step i.e. the purchase decision process. So in the purchase decision process, the consumer has decided to buy a OnePlus mobile and to purchase this OnePlus mobile, he may go to the online store or offline store. For example, he may go to Amazon.com to purchase the OnePlus mobile or he may go to Chroma or Glance Digital to purchase through offline mode. So this completes the fourth step of the consumer decision-making process i.e. purchasing the product. So once the customer has purchased this OnePlus mobile, the next process is post-purchase behavior i.e. after purchasing the mobile, he may be satisfied with the performance of the mobile or he may be dissatisfied with the performance of the mobile. So if he is satisfied with the performance of the mobile, he will recommend the mobile to many people and he will serve as a brand ambassador through positive word of mouth. And if he is not satisfied, then he will not recommend the product to anybody. So friends, that's all in today's video i.e. consumer decision-making process. 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