Topic > The Purchase Decision Process - 1159

Buyer behavior plays an important role when purchasing a product. It is important to satisfy needs and desires. Likewise, buyers differ in how they purchase a particular product. Buyer behavior is “the study of individuals, groups, or organizations and the processes they use to select, protect, use, and dispose of products, services, experiences, or ideas to satisfy needs and the impacts these processes have on the buyer and society” (Hawkins & Mothersbaugh, 2013, p. 6). The process that the buyer goes through in deciding to purchase a product or service to satisfy needs and wants is the purchase decision process. The purchasing decision process is also known as the psychological process. Perner (2008) expresses the view that buyer behavior consists of the psychological processes that buyers undergo in recognizing needs, discovering techniques for satisfying needs, deciding on purchases, interpreting information, creating plans, and elaborating these plans. The purchase decision process occurs within a buyer every time he decides to purchase a product (Young & Pagoso, 2008). As mentioned by Kotler and Armstrong (2010), there are five important steps in the purchase decision: recognize the need, search for information, evaluate the alternative, purchase decision and post-purchase behavior. The first step in the purchasing decision process is recognizing the need. The need to purchase is the stage that requires the buyer to recognize his or her needs (Halvadar & Cavale, 2007). Usually, the consumer has problems in the purchasing process. This is due to the multiple choices that appear when they want to buy things. Therefore, a choice dilemma would occur due to the inequality between needs and desired situations (Lamb, Hair, & Ma...... middle of paper ......urchase. Hawkins & Mothersbaugh (2013) stated that satisfaction includes repurchase, positive word of mouth and loyalty. The occurrence of a dissatisfaction situation affects the buyer's switching to another brand and creates negative word of mouth. O'Neill and Palmer (2004) pointed out that cognitive dissonance occurs when satisfaction is low and does not meet their expectations. Kotler and Armstrong (2012) express the opinion that customer satisfaction is the main reason for developing profitable and long-term relationships with buyers of the car meet the buyer's expectations the satisfaction level is high Furthermore, the seller's profit is increased due to the buyer's expectations and satisfaction. This stage is performed to ensure that the purchase decision has actually achieved its objective in delivering the purpose of the message.