E-commerce

Customer decision processes are the choice making procedures undertaken by consumers in regard to a potential market transaction before, during, and after the purchase of a product or service. In our everyday day life we make decisions in every minute or second before we take any action. This helps us in order to avoid regrets.

More generally, decision making is the  cognitive procedure of selecting a course of action from among numerous alternatives. Common examples include deciding what kind of dress to wear,            shopping. Decision making is said to be a psychological concept. This means that although we cant see a decision, we can deduce from observable behavior that a decision has been made. In broad there are three ways of analyzing customer buying decisions. They are

Psychological models - These models concentrate on psychological and cognitive processes such as motivation and need recognition. They are qualitative rather than quantitative and build on sociological factors like cultural influences and family influences.

Economic models - These models are largely quantitative and are based on the assumptions of rationality and near perfect knowledge. The consumer is seen to maximize their utility.

3)       Consumer behavior models - These are practical representations used by marketers. They typically intermingle both economic and psychological models.

The assumption of a perfectly rational economic actor is impractical. Frequently we are influenced by sensitive and non-rational considerations. When we try to be realistic we are at best only somewhat successful.

A regular style of the buyer decision process consists of the following steps 1) Problem recognition, 2) Information Search, 3) Evaluation of Alternative, 4) Purchase decision, 5) Purchase, 6) Post-purchase behaviorbuyers remorse (cognitive dissonance). For example, a student buying a favorite sandwich would recognize the need (hunger) and go directly to the purchase decision, omitting information search and evaluation. However, the model is very useful when it comes to understanding any purchase that requires some attention and caution. An intervening variable is a hypothetical situation that is used in empirical study and it explains the relationship between the dependent and the independent variables like inspiration, intention etc.  Intervening variable influence the dependent variable while moderating variable increase or decrease the influence. For example if we are seeing effects or televisions advertising on children consumption behavior cognition comes into the way thus it might totally change the decision variable. On the other hand moderating variable would be parental influence and peer pressure as they either would increase or decrease the decision variable.

The causal variables are independent variables that included the structure of the organization and managements policies, business, behavior, leadership strategies, decisions ands kills. Intervening variables reflects the health and internal status of the organization, attitudes, perceptions, motivations and loyalties. The end-result variables were the dependent variables, which reflect the achievements of the organization, such as productivity costs and earnings

The use of group decision making (defined as overlapping versus man-to-man), where relations and decision-making rely heavily on group processes also pointed to higher output.

High performance goals by the manager for the group, is also born out as an effective contributory variable in terms of productivity increases and positive impact on intervening variables. Managers who apply helpful relationships well, and also have elevated performance goals are much more likely to have better sales units and when sales managers apply supportive relationships use group methods and have high performance aspirations, they are much more likely to have higher-performing sales offices.Supportive relationships are described as those that are self -building rather than self -deflating (Likert, 1967), and his findings were that the more often self -building, the higher the performance. Certainly, building or deflating is defined from the subordinates perspective, not the leaders. The level or state of intervening variables are produced largely by the causal variables, and in turn have an influence on the end-result variables.

To manage the post-purchase stage, it is the job of the marketing team to influence the prospective customer that the product will gratify his or her needs. Then after having made a purchase, the customer should be encouraged that he or she has made the right decision.

In high-involvement decisions, the marketer needs to provide a good deal of information about the positive consequences of buying. The sales force may need to stress the important attributes of the product, the advantages compared with the competition and maybe even encourage trial or sampling of the product in the hope of securing the sale.