What a Consumer goes through when buying a cornetto!

Every marketer needs to understand what his consumer thinks when he/she busy his product. Every consumer is different, coming from different backgrounds, social groups - families with different cultural values, geographical regions. All these small factors influence the decision a consumer makes when he buys a product. Even the age and his personality affect the choice of product.

Thus, every marketer should try to get an insight on the consumer’s perception, what motivates the choices, what causes the learning process, emotions involved behind the emotions and the associations a consumer makes with the brand.

Over the years, the marketers have been successful to determine a model to understand the buying decision process of a consumer –

THE BUYING DECISION PROCESS: THE FIVE-STAGE MODEL

To grab a better understanding of how this model works and can be applied to any consumer irrespective of its background, I will see what a consumer thinks before he buys a cornetto.

STAGE-1: Problem Recognition

Say a group of friends comes out of college and wants to have something cold or just are hungry. Here, what is happening is that the consumer is establishing the requirement to solve the problem of hunger or the heat, which is making uncomfortable, and they believe something cold would solve their problem.

STAGE-2: Information Search

Now, this group of friends would search for products that are cold, maybe water, a cold drink, a cold coffee or an ice cream. After going through the shops and seeing what all they have to offer, they make a pool of options with them.

STAGE-3: Evaluation of Alternatives

The group of friends would now decide if they would go for a cold coffee of some vending machine, a cold drink – Coke or Pepsi; or pick an ice cream each – Cornetto, flavors available in cups. They would discuss the price, flavors, taste and preferences before moving onto the next step.

STAGE-4: Purchase Decision

This stage is very crucial for marketers for this stage will decide what consumers will choose. Here, the group of friends will evaluate what they will buy. The friends will now see that Cornetto is available in Rs.20 and Rs.40 and coke can get expensive. A small Cornetto will solve the purpose of something cold and hunger.

At this point, the friends take out their valets, pay the shopkeeper and walk out with a Cornetto in each hand.

STAGE-5: Post Purchase Behavior

  A marketer cannot forget the friends now, since the purchase was made. He has to make sure the friends enjoyed their ice creams, whether their cones were firm or soggy, the taste was like what they expected or not. Getting feedback helps them to gain loyalty of their customers.

STUDYING BEHAVIOR

The above model clearly explains that a person, who just needs something cold, goes through so many levels of thinking which even he doesn’t realize. It is because he is doing subconsciously. Marketers need to get an insight of what happens in the subconscious mind of the consumer. This is why consumer behavior is a very important aspect which every marketer tries to understand before launching any product in the market or coming up with the value proposition.