Blog Three

Last week, we began to study chapter five in our textbook. I scored a one hundred on the chapter five quiz, which I am pretty happy about. Chapter five is all about understanding consumer behavior. In this blog, I will begin to discuss what the consumer decision process and experience is. This is a five step decision that many consumers take part in before buying products: Problem recognition->information search->alternative evaluation->purchase decision->post-purchase behavior.

• "Problem recognition, the initial step in the purchase decision, is perceiving a difference between a person's ideal and actual situations big enough to trigger a decision"(Kerin, p.110). This can do with your outfits going out of style, wanting a next generation phone, or realizing you are running out of your favorite cereal.
• "After recognizing a problem, a consumer begins to search for information, the next stage in the purchase decision process"(Kerin, p.110). There are many different types of ways to search for information. An internal search revolves around past products or past companies you have bought or bought from before. There are personal sources, which have to do with recommendations from families or friends. There are also public sources, which have to do with consumer based reviews and reports. Finally, there are marketer-dominated sources, which is typically all that goes into a company's advertising. 
• "Alternative Evaluation clarifies the problem for the consumer by suggesting criteria to use for the purchase, yielding brand names that might meet the criteria, and developing consumer value perceptions"(Kerin, p.111).
• Purchase decision has to do with who you are going to buy it from and when you are going to buy it. When taking into consideration who you are going to buy from, you may check the stores selling price, warranty options, return policies, etc. When picking when to buy the product you may want to see when there could be a sale/deal or if there are rebates on the product.
• The final stage, post-purchase behavior, has to do with the consumers thoughts on the product once they have purchased it. Typically, a consumer can either be satisfied or dissatisfied. "If customers are dissatisfied, marketers must determine whether the product was deficient or consumer expectations were too high"(Kerin, p.112). Often times, this affects post purchase behavior of similar products/companies, and whether or not they choose to buy from them again. Some consumers go through cognitive dissonance, which is post purchase anxiety/unsureness.

The reason I chose to go over these five steps in my blog is because every person on earth is a consumer at one point. These steps are essential to picking a product or item that will meet your expectations. Besides reviewing this section of chapter five, we have also begun a group project with the MHPractice backpack simulator. This can be purchased for around fifty dollars online and can be accessed right away. As a group, we are a backpack company and using this simulator, we are able to create a backpack and introduce it to specific markets that meet specific target market needs. Every step that is needed to start a successful business line in a company is incorporated in the simulation. Every quarter, we get financial and sales reports for our backpack in order to improve are product and are marketing techniques. We are starting the first simulation this week and writing a paper with our group, I will be sure to update you about it in my next blog.

Thanks for reading!