Assignment 3

My Buying Decision Process: ADATA Classic CH11 1TB

Marketing Management
MKT 501

Submitted to

Dr. Md. Humayun Kabir Chowdhury

Professor Department of Business Administration East West University

Submitted by

Sad Hasnain Ahmed

Id#2010-3-95-033

Date of Submission

8th August 2011

My Buying Decision Process: ADATA Classic CH11 1TB

These basic psychological processes play an important role in understanding how consumers actually make their buying decision. The consumers pass through five stages (see Figure 1): problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, and post purchase behavior. Clearly, the buying process starts long before the actual purchase and has consequences long afterward. However, consumers do not always pass through all five stages in buying a product or service. They may skip or reverse some stages.

Problem Recognition
The buying process starts when the buyer recognizes a problem or need.
|FIG 1| Five-Stage Model of the Consumer Buying Process

The need can be triggered by internal or external stimuli. With an internal stimulus, one of the persons normal needs rises to a threshold level and becomes a drive; or a need can be aroused by an external stimulus.

However, in my buying process, my internal stimulus was aroused by the solution from external stimuli. I first saw a same kind of product (Transcend StoreJet T35) bought by my friend. Then I recognized my need for that kind of product to store my huge load of files.

Information Search
An aroused consumer will be inclined to search for more information. We can distinguish between two levels of arousal. The Transcend StoreJet T35 milder search state is called heightened attention; at this level a person simply becomes more receptive to information about a product. At the next level, the person may enter an active information search; looking for reading materials, phoning friends, going online and visiting stores to learn about the product. What I did while searching for more information was browsing internet and calling friends. Total set of brands available from my information search are given in figure 2. 1

Awareness Set Transcend Western Digital (WD) Maxtor Adata Toshiba

Consideration Set Transcend Western Digital Adata

Choice Set WD Adata

Decision Adata

|FIG 2| Succession Sets Involved in My Decision Making

My Attribute Preference Hierarchy: Price > Style > Q&S > S&W > Convenience

Evaluation of Alternatives
How does the consumer process competitive brand information and make a final value judgment? No single process is used by all consumers or by one consumer in all buying situations. As a consumer, I first felt the need to have a portable hard disk to store my files. Then, the solutions I knew were Transcend, WD, Maxtor, Adata and Toshiba. Finally, I took decision on the attributes I was searching from my portable hard disk were reasonable price, stylish outlook, good quality & service (Q&S), size & weight (S&W) and convenience (See Figure 2). EXPECTANCY-VALUE MODEL Consumers evaluate products and services by combining their brand beliefs-the positive and negatives-according to importance. Table 1 shows my beliefs about how each brand rated on the four attributes (See Figure 2) I was interested in.
Portable HD Price Transcend WD Maxtor Adata Toshiba 8 7 6 9 8 Style 6 7 5 9 8 Attribute Q&S 9 10 8 8 7 S&W 6 7 5 8 9 Convenience 8 8 5 10 6 |TABLE 2| My Brand Beliefs about Portable HD

The weights I probably would have assigned was 30% of the importance to the price of the portable HD, 25% to style, 25% to Q&S, 10% to S&W and 10% to convenience. To find my

perceived value for each portable HD, according to the expectancy-value model, I multiplied my assigned weights by my beliefs about each Portable HDs attributes. This computation leaded me to the following perceived values: Transcend = (0.30)8 + (0.25)6 + (0.25)9 + (0.10)6 + (0.10)8 = 7.55 WD = (0.30)7 + (0.25)7 + (0.25)10 + (0.10)7 + (0.10)8 = 7.85 Maxtor = (0.30)6 + (0.25)5 + (0.25)8 + (0.10)5 + (0.10)5 = 6.05 Adata = (0.30)10 + (0.25)9 + (0.25)8 + (0.10)8 + (0.10)10 = 8.75 Toshiba = (0.30)8 + (0.25)8 + (0.25)7 + (0.10)9 + (0.10)6 = 7.65 My expectation-model formulation shows that I would have favored Adata, which (at 8.75) had the highest perceived value.

Purchase Decision
In execution of my purchase intention, I had to make four sub-decisions about brand (Adata), dealer (IT World), Quantity (One) and payment method (Cash). NONCOMPENSATORY MODELS OF CONSUMER CHOICE In my Portable HD buying process, I actually took some mental shortcuts using simplifying choice heuristics. Heuristics are rules of thumb or mental shortcuts in the decision process. With non-compensatory models of consumer choice, positive and negative attribute considerations do not necessarily net out. Evaluating attributes more in isolation makes decision making easier for a consumer, but also increases the likelihood that the person would have made a different choice if he or she had deliberated in greater detail. Three such choice heuristics are given in the next page: 1. With the conjunctive heuristic, the consumer sets a minimum acceptable cut off level for each attribute and chooses the first alternative that meets the minimum standard for all attributes with the conjunctive heuristic.

2. With the lexicographic heuristic, the consumer chooses the best brand on the basis of its perceived most important attribute. 3. With the elimination-by-aspects heuristic, the consumer compares brands on an attribute selected probabilistically where the probability of choosing an attribute is positively related to its importance and brands are eliminated if they do not meet minimum acceptable cutoff levels. Characteristics of the person (e.g. my narrow brand or product knowledge), the purchase decision task and setting (e.g. number and similarity of brand choices and time pressure involved), and social context (e.g. need for justification to my parents about the price) all may affect if and how choice heuristics are used. I have not adopted only one type of choice rule in making purchase decisions. I adopted a phased decision strategy that combined two decision rules. I first used the elimination-byaspects heuristic to reduce the number of brand choices to a more manageable number (WD and Adata) base on perceived price and quality and then evaluated the remaining two brands by conjunctive heuristic based on the all attributes given in figure 2. INTERVENING FACTORS Even if consumers form brand evaluations, two general factors can intervene between the purchase intention and the purchase decision. The first factor is the attitudes of others. The extent to which another persons attitude reduces the preference for an alternative depends on two things: 1. The intensity of the other persons negative attitude toward the consumers preferred alternative and 2. The consumers motivation to comply with the other persons wishes. The more intense the other persons negativism and the closer the other person to the consumer, the more the consumer will adjust his or her purchase intention. The converse is also true: A buyers preference for a brand will increase if someone he or she respects favors the same brand strongly.

The second factor is unanticipated situational factors that may erupt to change the purchase intention. In my Portable HD buying process, I faced two unexpected situations. At first, I rejected WD because of the negative attitude of the sales person of Computer Source and then got motivated to buy Adata because of the supportive attitude of the sales person of IT World.
Attitudes of Others

Purchase Decision

Unanticipated Situational Factors

Purchase Intention

Postpurchase Behavior
Post-purchase behavior involves all the consumers' activities and the experiences that follow the purchase. After the purchase, the consumer might experience dissonance that stems from noticing certain disquieting
|FIG 3|

Evaluation of Alternatives

Steps between Evaluation Alternatives and a Purchase Decision

features or hearing favorable things about other brands and will be alert to information that supports his or her decision. I am also facing slight post purchase dissonance because of the favorable words I am hearing from my friend who is using WDs Portable HD. Postpurchase Satisfaction and Action Satisfaction is a function of the closeness between expectations and the products perceived performance. If performance falls short of expectations, the consumer is disappointed; if it meets expectations, the consumer is satisfied; if it exceeds expectations, the consumer is delighted. As my Adata Portable HD met my expectations, I am satisfied with it and I will suggest my acquaintances to buy it.