Decision Making Process and Consumer Buying Process - Essay Example

The paper "Decision-Making Process and Consumer Buying Process" is an excellent example of an essay on marketing. The decision-making process that a consumer goes through before making a purchase as opposed to the actual purchase is the contrast between the decision making vs. consumer buying process. In marketing parlance, there are the processes of decision making and consumer buying that reinforces and complements each other. The decision-making process typically involves the stages ranging from identifying the need, searching for information, evaluating alternatives and finally taking the decision. A successful marketer would recognize the importance of each step of the decision-making process as concentrating only on the final step i.e., the decision making might be a case of too late for the products that the customer would have evaluated but not purchased.

There are several models of consumer decision making that include the rational or the economic model, the psychological model, and the consumer behavior model. The rational model has come in for criticism lately due to the fact that the concept of consumers making rational choices has been questioned by the experts. On the other hand, the psychological models that take into account the cognitive aspect, as well as the whims and fancies of the buyer, is considered more appropriate.
The consumer buying process is the outcome of the decision-making process and is the last stage of the decision-making process. As such, it can be said that the actual buying is the outcome of a complex process that takes into account several factors, both external and internal. Thus, when we contrast the decision-making process with that of the consumer buying process, we are making a distinction between the inputs and the outputs to take an analogy from technology. Read More