Psychology of Buying

Marketing decisions play an important role. They are taken by considering various
preferences, perceptions, and behavior of customers (either individual or groups of
individuals). This article helps in understanding the processes involved in customer buying
decision.
Two subgroups under the Consumer psychology are -
 Information Processing Segment – Focuses on cognition, stages in communication
model, memory-based talks and employs cognitive response and recall measures.
 Behavioral decision theory – Focuses on Choice/ decision- making models, economic
psychology, stimulus-based tasks and follows information acquisition, verbal
protocols.

Dual Processing models:

With variety of choices available for the customers these days, they engage in a 2-step
decision making process. Initially in the simplification step customers shortlist set of products
or brands for further consideration. Adaptation strategy is used then to narrow down from the
list by cutting of must avoids. Compensatory process is used to further review the shortlisted
ones. It is a process in which a tradeoff happens for one feature or attribute for another. When
there are variety of products available and they are complex to evaluate, buyers employ non
compensatory techniques to shortlist from them. Scenarios like more brands, information
overload, time pressure, etc. falls under this category.

Measurement and Analysis Considerations:

Various measurement technique and model building tools for compensatory and non-
compensatory processes are discussed. Ranking, Constant sum Qsort are some of the
measurement techniques and Logit, Log linear, descriptive statistics are the model building
tools for non-compensatory process. For compensatory measurement techniques used are
ranking or rating levels, paired comparisons, choice sets, maximum difference. Model
building tools such as Regression, Logit are used.

Conclusion:
By employing the above process to accurately identify nature of decision making by the
buyer and building an analysis result with the help of research methods and tools, the
marketing decision to drive the project can be arrived.