Free Consumer Buying Behavior Essay Sample
High involvement product is normally the product that one buys after a very careful selection and it is considered to be of very high value. Involvement in this case refers to the amount of time or energy you sacrifice in purchase process. You will agree with me that before buying a commodity like a car, you need to take various steps with lots of things to consider. On the other hand, low involvement product is the kind of product that one can think of and purchase in the next few minutes with no many things to consider as it is not of high value.
There are three models we can use to analyze consumer buying descions.One of them is the Psychological model, economic model and consumer behavior model. In our case, we are considering consumer behavior model. This model is universally used by the marketers where by they merge both Psychological and economic models so as to come up with the results. The stages I undertook to purchase my car were as follows. I first had to recognize the kind of need (the need to own a car), and then I went about searching for the most important information. This comprised of, knowing various types of cars in the market, how much each type goes for, and the pros and cons of each particular make. I must admit that, it was not an easy task as I spent a lot of days visiting various selling centers but I never managed to get the car with the features I was looking for until I finally searched on the website .based on my taste, I had to come up with the best alternative that I saw suited me as there were two options. One, to import and the other one to buy from the Japan based dealer in our country, who was selling at a higher rate that was not so friendly to me. This left me with no alternative but to import it. However, after the purchase, I too went back for the post purchase Evaluation to see if I should have gone for a different make. This entire process was so different from what I experienced while buying the light bulb. All I did is that, I just had to recognize the need (of course the bulb), paid minimum information search, and with no much alternative evaluation I just went straight to buy my bulb and never conducted any post purchase evaluation. With low involvement products you find that they do not need to be imported by the consumer as they are locally available. We normally use them in our daily basis and so we buy them more often.
It calls for two different approaches towards decision purchase process of both the high involvement and low involvement products, as I realized while buying my car and the bulb light. For example, after realizing that I needed to have a car, I had to first conduct thorough information on the variety of cars in the market, a process that took long time as I had to factor in the cost, the much I can spend in servicing incase of breakdown, its fuel consumption rate, the availability of spare parts as well as its durability. On the other hand, when I needed to buy the bulb light I never factored in the issue of its cost, service charges and things like taking insurance cover like I did for my car. Another significant difference I came to realize is, there was no guarantee required while buying a low value product like there is on a high value product. Low involvement product differs from high involvement product in that; there is no issue of post purchase evaluation on high value product. This is whereby, after a consumer buys a particular product, he goes back to conduct a survey on whether he made the right decision or he should have settled for another product. A case I never even thought of after I purchased my bulb light.
In general we can say that, from the purchase of my two different products, high involvement product is like a form of investment while low involvement product is just for a short period of time as it expires or breaks easily. There are two important considerations I made as I undertook the purchase decision of my car that I did not while buying the bulb. I first took time to think of when to buy the car, and from whom I should buy from as it is always advisable to buy high involvement products from trust worth dealers.
With high involvement products, customers give high respect to products they get information from their friends for the sake of reliability unlike the low involvement products since, incase you taste a new product and feel like it is not appeasing to you, you can just go for another alternative as soon as possible and with no pinch due to low cost. A case that is much uncommon with high involvement products since most of them are bought occasionally and at very expensive price.
Consumer buying behavior is one such composite activity that should be undertaken with a lot of care as so many internal and external factors should be taken in to consideration. In my case, I can say that, with the much knowledge I have attained after learning this topic, it can help me very much especially in buying decision process. Another advantage I have is that, if I choose to be an entrepreneur or even a marketer and specialize on either high or low involvement products, I believe I can start making a lot of sales due to the rich knowledge I now have. For example I know that, incase of any need irrespective of the involvement value, it first needs to be identified and then take very good time of searching the necessary information that you need before you purchase your commodity. Taking my earlier example of a car, you do not just wake up and go to general motors and purchase it there and then. You need to take your time, conduct thorough search and gather all the details of the kind of car you need to buy. Some of the required information may be gained from the friends, dealers, family or even visit the website like I did.
When you have the information you need, you need to evaluate different options such as. Do I need a Mercedes Benz or should I take a Toyota make?
Another important model that can be used in illustration of consumer buying behavior is the black box model. The black box here is the human mind. It is called so because we know very minimal about what happens in our minds. The model holds that, a given stimuli has to be catalyzed to bring about a particular response that is responsible for making consumers respond in a given way towards that stimuli as developed in the mind.