Low and High Involvement Situations of Buying Behavior - Essay Example

Title: Low and high involvement situations of buying behavior Name Unit Introduction The level of involvement is a concept in the consumer behavior. This is a psychological condition that leads to the people being motivated and aware about the persons, objects or situations. The level of involvement indicates the importance that is attached by the person to the person, object or situation. Marketers are always looking at the purchase patterns of the consumers to determine their shopping behavior. Through this, the marketers can be able to sell their produce more easily. Before making a purchase decision, the consumer goes through a process. The consumer must first identify the need before they make search for information about it. After searching for information about it, the consumer has to evaluate the products. This leads to choosing the product, using and finally disposing. This process is in a high involvement situation. For low involvement, purchases are made once a need arises. Consumer does not have to necessarily go through the whole process when making their purchases. Sometimes, the consumer buys without making any forethought which leads to impulse buying. Level of buying is determined by how one is interested in a product (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2004). This essay will look at both high and low involvement situations of buying behavior by looking at two recent purchases I made where the level of involvement can be characterized as high or low. Many factors are responsible for influencing the consumer behavior. The type of the decisions that a consumer makes is determined by the experience and knowledge on the product. For some consumers making decision may involve just a little time while for other, they have to take time to get information and get more involved before making a purchase decision. I will look into the purchase decision I made involving purchase for a laptop and also buying bread. Making a purchase for a laptop involves a higher risk and I had to take care. The decision involved is fairly complex due to various models available and pricing. The laptop performance has to be taken into consideration. This is not a purchase that I make often which made it even more engaging. The process I used involved extended problem solving where I spend a lot of time doing comparisons on features, prices warranty and performance. The process caused me great anxiety which can be defined as post purchase dissonance (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2004). I had difficult time in choosing between the available alternatives. I had to go to the company websites and look for the product information. I also checked on the consumers reviews on the laptop model. The two competing alternatives were Toshiba and Hp Brand each having its own advantages and disadvantages. For the purchase of bread, I realized that I was running out of it in the house. Low involving decisions such as purchase of bread do not involve a lot of thinking. Sometimes, the decisions to make the purchases are made out of impulse. One may visit a store and see the grocery. The attraction to the display of the grocery may prompt the buyer to make a purchase. It’s important to note that not all the products that are purchased on impulse are low involvement products (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2004). In some cases, the consumers making low involvement decisions may be engaged in a routine response behavior. The routine response behavior refers to making the purchase decision using limited information which has been gathered in the past. For example, if a consumer usually takes a pizza at certain place, they may engage themselves in a routine response. The routine to take the pizza from the location may lead them to buy it without searching for any information. Low involvement products are inexpensive and have low risk and value. These are frequently purchased products such as bread. The consumer does not have to give much thought on the purchase and does it as a matter of routine. For the marketers, low involvement products require low involvement media. This should be focused on bringing the desirable behavior towards the product. The products should be categorized as day to day purchases which can also be classified as impulse items (Loudon & Bitta, 2002). In purchasing the laptop, I had to go through a decision making process. The first process was recognizing that I needed a laptop. Need recognition involves recognizing the requirement of a good or service. The consumer must feel the inadequacy and the urge to satisfy it. I felt I needed a laptop so that I could use it for my class work. For the purchase of bread, the need is driven by hunger. The reason to buy bread stems from the fact that you are running out of supply or you just feel the need to eat it (Peter & Olson, 2005). For low involvement purchase, the consumer simply recognizes the need and goes to the store to satisfy it. There is no search for information during this process of buying the products. While in high involving purchase behavior, the consumer has to look for enough information before making a purchase. The purchase for the car made me to look for all the relevant information required. In this stage, consumer past experience may play a part in making the decision. For example, if the consumer had a bad experience about a product, they may not purchase it. The same applies when the consumer had negative information about a certain brand. However, making a purchase for the first time may involve more time in looking for information (Loudon & Bitta, 2002). There are a lot of sources for the consumer information due to rise of the information technology. Using online search has made it easier to look for the products information. Internet shopping has also become popular with a lot of the consumer making their purchases. The site gives information about the product, price and specifications. Most of the consumer looks for the independent sources when making their decision to make purchases. Though sometimes, the consumer may consult a non-neutral source such as a company brochure or website. In my case, I looked at the company websites on their computers and pricing. I also consulted various websites which gave the user reviews (Loudon & Bitta, 2002). After searching for product information, the next step is product evaluation. There are a lot of laptop brands to choose from. This makes it impossible to look at all of them. Having too many choices can be overwhelming to the consumer. This may lead to the consumer making a short cut decision or failing to buy at all. I developed my own evaluation criteria that helped me to narrow down my choices (Lindquist & Sirgy, 2003). The criteria were based on price, size, model and specifications. For the purchase of the bread, I had to go from recognizing the need to making a purchase. I did not have to go through the rest of the procedures. For the purchase of the laptop, the procedure was different (Schwartz, 2004). I had to make a decision on the type to purchase and the place to buy. The terms of purchase were also very important before committing to purchase. For the purchase of laptop, there were several stores that offered similar products but with different terms and prices. I had to look for a store that would offer me a credit and a warranty. After making the purchase, the next step is determining the worth of the product bought. This is the post purchase use and evaluation. The customer in this stage may suffer from post purchase dissonance. This is a situation which occurs when the purchased product fails to meet the buyers’ expectation. This occurs in the products that are not purchased frequently such as laptops and cars. The purchase of low involving products such as bread does not have this effect. This is a condition that occurs to buyers that may lead them to returning the product or giving negative publicity about it (Aqueveque, 2006). From my purchase decision, I was happy with my choice of product. The consumer involvement affects the decision making process. Involvement motivates the consumers to seek, attend and think about a product before they commit to purchase. This can also be taken as the perceived interest which the consumer has attached to a certain product or service. Consumers enter the market place with varying levels of interests on the products and services depending on personal importance. The consumer involvement varies according to the person and the purchase situations. This is the reason why some of the consumers are more involved than others (Jackson, 2005). Consumer buying behavior can be rational or socially driven due to personal and cultural influences. Culture refers to the shared beliefs, attitudes, customs and norms that are part of the society. Culture determines the way in which we live (Godin, Conner & Sheeran, 2005). The consumer culture, subculture and social class determine their purchase behavior. The cultural norms may make it impossible to purchase a certain product (Amaldoss & Jain, 2005). This influences the way the consumer makes the decision concerning purchase. Culture in some instances determines what to wear and what to eat. For example, the mode of cultural dressing for Arab women determines the type of clothes they buy. This makes their purchase to be cultural determined. The consumer social class has a profound effect on their decision making. The consumer can make a rational decision or be driven by the social class when purchasing. Consumers in a certain social class have the same purchase behaviors. Those in a high social class may be forced to buy expensive products due to their status expectation. The society expects the high social class to live in a certain way (Goldsmith, Flynn & Daekwan, 2010). This affects their consumers’ purchase behavior. The reference group is another factor that can influence the consumer purchase behavior. This is the group in which the consumer wishes to join (Kurt, Inmann & Argo, 2011). Opinion leaders are the group of people whom the consumers’ respects and can easily follows their opinion. A consumer may fail to make a rational decision and follow the advice of an opinion leader. Using the reference group and opinion leaders the consumers’ purchases decisions are influenced (Escalas & Bettman, 2005). The consumers’ family background may determine whether they act rationally or by the influence. If the family culture does a lot of impulse shopping, there is a high possibility of doing so. The things that a person grew observing in a family influences their attitudes. This determines the products that one favors as an adult. In this case, the person may fail to think rationally and act according to the family culture. The children pester power can influence the parent judgment during the purchases (Moore, Elizabeth & Richard, 2000). This has been used by the companies to make sales advertisements. The consumer behavior cannot be perceived to be influenced by rational decision making due to individual preferences (Borgmann, 2000). There are other factors that influence it such as social norms, culture, habits and other factors that are in the life of the consumer. Our attitude does not always shape our purchase behavior as there are other factors. In conclusion, consumer involvement during purchase can be either high or low. This is determined by the type of product, cost and the risk involved. Purchasing bread is a low involvement activity as compared to purchasing car or a laptop. Often, low involvement products are purchased as a routine. High involvement products are purchased once after a very long time. Consumer involvement can be short term or long term. The level of involvement determines the time taken to make a purchase. For a low involvement product, the need recognition leads to immediate buying. For the high involving products, it takes a process to make a decision. Consumer behavior is affected by, personal, cultural and social factors. These determine whether we make our decisions rationally or we are affected by other people. The behavior exhibited by a consumer may be due to the culture they are from, family background, personal attitudes and asocial class. For marketers, understanding the consumer behavior is vital. 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