Chapter 8 – What is the B2C Buyer Decision Process?

As consumers, we don’t randomly buy products and services. We use a specific buyer decision process, whether consciously or unconsciously, to make the final decision regarding which product or service can best satisfy our needs.

To understand this better, let us take our instant noodles example from earlier. 

1. The first time you went to the supermarket to buy instant noodles yourself, you must have had a good reason to do so. You must have realized that there was a “need” to go and buy instant noodles in the first place, be it scarcity of resources needed to cook something else or mere late-night munchies.
2. Then you must have talked to people you know and looked on the internet to find out which brand of instant noodles you should buy. Maybe your friends told you that you should try a brand you had never tried before because it is cheap and has a great portion. On surfing the internet, you may have found out that the nutritional value is great too.
3. But let’s imagine that you were still not satisfied. You evaluate the alternatives available to you at the supermarket. There are ten different brands of instant noodles on the shelf. 
4. After evaluating the alternatives, you make the ultimate decision to buy the best alternative that can satisfy your needs, is within your budget, has a good portion, comes with great nutritional value, etc.
5. On consuming the product you have purchased, you will either have had a good experience or a bad one. Based on this experience, you will decide whether you want to purchase this brand of instant noodles in the future or not.

This process is called the buyer decision process. We employ this process in making every purchase decision. In this chapter, we will study this process in detail and try to understand why a marketer needs to understand it.

Understanding the buyer decision process

As we discussed in the buyer decision process example above, consumers are smart people who follow a more or less set procedure when faced with a decision to buy a product or service. With the growing range of products and services available today, following this process becomes even more important. 

There are 5 stages of the buyer decision process. Let us discuss each of them in detail.

1. Need recognition

The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘need’ as circumstances in which something is necessary; necessity. It can also be defined as the deprivation or absence of something.

According to Philip Kotler, need recognition occurs when the buyer recognizes a problem or need triggered by: 

• Internal stimuli 
• External stimuli

This is the first step in the buyer decision process because it is only logical that a consumer would buy something when they recognize a need for it. Once a consumer recognizes a need, their upbringing, culture, beliefs, values, etc., moulds this need into a want.

A ‘want’ is defined as a desire for something. It is different from a need because a want can satisfy the need more effectively than something a consumer would not necessarily want. 

For example, when you recognize the need for instant noodles, you will not complain if you have to buy your second favorite brand of instant noodles because the supermarket ran out of your favorite. 

However, it is safe to say that your favorite brand of instant noodles would have satisfied your need even better.

While internal stimuli include hunger, thirst, pain, etc., external stimuli include a variety of marketing campaigns. As a marketer, you cannot create an internal stimulus, but you can definitely create an external one.

A repetitive ad campaign can do this job because once you ensure customers can recognize and trust you, they will be all set to buy your product or service the next time they recognize an internal stimulus that can be satisfied with it.

Let us take the instant noodles example to understand these steps in detail. 

When you reach college, you were somewhat underprepared in the sense that you did not carry a carton full of instant noodles like your batchmates. This has left you at a considerable disadvantage when it comes to making friends because late-night conversations need something to bond over.

It has also come to your attention that you are unable to maintain your normal sleep cycle due to the extreme workload, which has left you craving snacks in the middle of the night. But you are also running out of the snacks your mom packed for you! This has left you wanting chai and instant noodles.

2. Information search

As the name suggests, the second stage in the buyer decision process includes searching for information. According to Kotler, it is the amount of information needed in the buying process and depends on: 

• The strength of the drive, 
• The amount of information you start with, 
• The ease of obtaining the information, 
• The value placed on the additional information, and 
• The satisfaction from searching.

He also says that there are four sources of information:

• Personal sources - This includes family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, etc. The personal sources help to legitimize and evaluate information.
• Commercial sources - This includes advertisements, salespeople, websites, dealers, packaging, display, etc. These help to inform the consumer.
• Public sources - The third source also helps to inform consumers and includes mass media, internet searches, consumer-rating organizations, etc. Public sources are different from commercial sources in the sense that a company or brand pays for commercial sources of information, whereas public sources are organic and more trustworthy.
• Experiential sources - This includes the consumer’s own experiences with the brand (personal handling, examining, and use) and helps the consumer to evaluate information.

At this stage of the buyer decision process, the consumer needs to feel like your brand is a trustworthy source of information. To create and uphold that image, you need to make sure to include honest and critical customer reviews on your website.

Another way to do this is by posting educational content on your brand's website. Educational content includes blogs, vlogs, podcasts, etc., to help the consumer understand their problem and how they can solve this problem without the intent of selling your own product to them. A great example is the free blogs (like this one itself) posted on LearnMarketing.ai.

Let’s understand this better by continuing the instant noodles example. Let’s assume that you have been consuming instant noodles since you were a child, so you have a decent idea about what brands are readily available in Indian markets. 

The strength of the drive (hunger and loneliness) is at an all-time high. You have consumed instant noodles before and you know where the nearest supermarket is. There is only one problem. The brand you used to like as a child shut down two years ago.

You need information. You first talk to your cousins about new brands of instant noodles. They tell you about six different brands! India is a huge market!

Faced with this huge load of information, you choose to talk to some of your batchmates about which brands they prefer. They tell you about two of the most popular brands on campus. The choice is now yours.

3. Evaluation of alternatives

Once you have gathered all the information, you need to weigh the pros and cons of each available option. 

This is the step where the consumer does most of the independent thinking. They have gathered all the information they could to find the most viable alternatives. Now, the choice has to be made.

The best way to market to consumers at this stage is to somehow prove to them that your product is superior to the competitors’ products. The sales team and the customer care team need to know each and every detail about the competitors thoroughly.

Taking our instant noodles example forward, let’s understand this step better. 

You reach the supermarket the moment you get the chance. On seeing the two brands on the shelf, you realize that you’ve seen advertisements of one of them on YouTube. 

Hmm… The nutritional value also seems better, the portion is bigger, the packaging is more attractive… Scared, you look at the price. Surprisingly, the price is lower too! You found the winner! 

Here, you (the consumer) have considered the nutritional value, portion, packaging, and prices of the different brands as the criteria for establishing which brand is better than the rest.

4. Purchase decision

This is the step where the consumer makes the final decision based on the evaluation of alternatives. The consumer has decided which brand they would like to try or continue consuming.

The purchase decision can be affected by:

• Attitudes of others

• Unexpected situational factors

At this stage, there is not much a marketer can do except sit back and hope for the best. All your marketing efforts will come to fruition if the marketing was actually effective. 

However, this is only true for offline stores. Today, many retail transactions take place online, so as the marketer, you can send last-minute nudges in the form of pop-up notifications like the ones sent by Swiggy when you forget your cart.

Continuing with our instant noodles example, we have you at the checkout counter of the supermarket. Gladly, you put ten packets of the instant noodles in your shopping basket and check out of the supermarket.

5. Post-purchase decision

It reflects the relationship between the consumer’s expectations and the product’s perceived performance. The larger the gap between expectation and performance, the greater the consumer’s dissatisfaction.

Understandably, consumer satisfaction is a key to building profitable relationships with consumers - to keeping and growing consumers and reaping their customer lifetime value. To do this, one of the most important things to rely on is customer delight. It is the process of exceeding a customer's expectations to create a positive experience with your product or brand.

You can also ask consumers to fill surveys, provide feedback, etc. One method to encourage them to repeat purchase can be to offer discounts or other incentives on their fifth purchase, for example.

Once you have bought the instant noodles, you find that some of your batchmates have cleverly started spending more time with you. Little do they know, it was your plan all along! One night, while working on a group assignment, your group members ask you to make some instant noodles.

Gladly, you make the instant noodles and secretly add an extra packet of the spice mix to the kettle. Instantly (pun intended), your group members become your friends because of your magical ability to uplift the flavor of their favorite instant noodles! 

The product’s perceived performance has exceeded your expectations. You are very happy with your decision to buy those instant noodles. Whenever you go to the supermarket, you make sure to never forget to buy some. 

In fact, you were so satisfied with the product that you decided to try more products of the same brand! You also tell your cousins about these instant noodles, and they become fans of it too. You have even stopped paying attention to the other brands’ advertisements.

This is how greatly consumer satisfaction can affect your brand. From repeat purchases to favorable word of mouth, there are infinite possibilities of how positively even one satisfied consumer can affect your brand’s value.

Conclusion and key takeaways

In this chapter, we have studied the buyer decision process and the B2B purchase decision process. To recall, here are some of the key takeaways. There are five steps in the buyer decision process:

1. Need recognition
2. Information search
3. Evaluation of alternatives
4. Purchase decision
5. Post-purchase decision

In the next chapter, we will discuss another important aspect of the buyer decision process - the B2B buyer decision process.