Which of the following decisions are made at the purchase stage of the consumer decision process.

Stages of the Consumer Decision-Making Process

The consumer decision-making process refers to the mental workings of the customer leading up to a purchase choice.

The consumer decision-making process refers to the mental workings of the customer leading up to a purchase choice. The main stages of this process are:

1. Need Recognition (becoming aware of something the customer needs). This is the first and most important stage of the buying process that can end in a purchase from your business.
   
2. Information Search. This is when the customer finds out what options are available to them as means of fulfilling their needs.
   
3. Evaluation of Alternatives (comparison). In this stage, the customer compares the options available to them to determine the best option in the end.
   
4. Purchase (conversion). This is the stage where the customer has reached a final decision and makes a purchase.
   
5. Post-Purchase Behaviour. After buying something, the customer evaluates whether they got their money’s worth. If the customer is satisfied with what they purchased, they are more likely to buy from the same retailer in the future and recommend the product/service to other people.

Understanding all the steps of this process is vitally important for any business, and e-commerce businesses have the benefit of having a platform where they can optimise this process to attract new customers and retain current customers. Brick and mortar storefronts can only collect so much customer data, which is dependent on the physical interaction with the customer inside the store. In contrast, online retailers can find or generate significantly more customer data to use in implementing conversion strategies for each stage of the consumer decision-making process. We believe these stages are worth discussing in detail:

1. Need Recognition

Customer needs can be boiled down to real or perceived emotional and physiological needs.

This initial stage in customer decision making occurs when a customer first becomes aware that they have a need that isn’t being fulfilled. There are two reasons for a need to arise:

Internal stimuli – This includes emotional or physiological needs such as thirst, hunger, being tired or cranky, etc.

External stimuli – Commonplace examples of this are advertisements or emotional associations to objects stored in the customer’s memory.

The root cause of a need can be a variety of things, but at their most basic level, customer needs can be boiled down to real or perceived emotional and physiological needs. For example, someone who wants to appear attractive to other people will need clothes and accessories that can help them look their best. This is an example of a social stimulus causing a need for attractive clothing. A need can also be driven by functional desires, such as needing food to satisfy hunger or warm clothing to stay protected from cold weather. Other examples of functional needs can include the need for a car to be able to get to work, or needing a laptop to work from home, etc. At their core, all needs are caused by internal or external stimuli.

2. Information Search

After a customer has identified a need, their next step is to look for a way to fulfil that need. This is the stage where you can start leveraging the enormous potential of being an online business. For the majority of customers today, their first stop for finding solutions to problems is to Google it. It is vital that your online store should be visible to the customer, and the best way to ensure that is to get a high ranking in Google searches for the products and services that you are selling.

As an online business, you will need to have a well-optimized online storefront to rank high for the keywords related to your brand. You can turn interested people into customers by optimising your website for SEO and being the first thing people see when they search for keywords related to your business. Your older customers can be of help writing reviews that you can publish on your site. This will help to attract interested customers and your brand will make an impression on visitors. The reviews from your old customers will help your SEO efforts by providing keyword-rich content that is relevant to your business. You can leverage the full potential of reviews by integrating them with your product listings and by using Google Rich Snippets.

3. Evaluation of Alternatives

After the customer has completed their search for information, the next stage is the evaluation and comparison of different options in order to find the most promising alternative. In this stage of the consumer decision-making process, the potential customer is aware of your brand and visits your website to help decide whether to buy from you or from someone else. A customer’s decision will depend on the availability of options that best suit their needs and whether the purchase will be worth the money. Two key factors influence the evaluation of alternatives:

Subjective: This includes the feelings a customer has about your brand. These feelings are influenced by past experience with the brand and by reading reviews from other customers.

Objective: This includes attributes such as functionality, price, ease of use, and product or service features.

Good reviews and testimonials from past customers can increase customer trust and engagement, helping convert more leads into sales.

Good reviews and testimonials from past customers can increase customer trust and engagement, helping convert more leads into sales. Putting user reviews on your homepage is a good idea as it will make sure that they get seen as soon as potential customers visit your website. The other place to put user reviews is on your product pages. It is recommended that you use a home page carousel for the reviews to reduce the bounce rate and increase visitors’ time on your website. This increase in engagement will get the customer to learn more about your business and leave with a positive impression of your brand.

Along with user reviews, another powerful example of user-generated content is community questions and answers. They help in showcasing your brand as receptive to questions and queries about your products.

4. Purchase

The process of making a purchase from your website should be as easy as possible.

As the name implies, this is the stage in which the customer has decided where they want to buy from and are ready to make the purchase. You might be thinking that if someone has come this far in the consumer decision-making process, a sale is guaranteed. But, it is still possible to lose a customer at this stage. The most important element in this stage is ensuring a good purchasing experience for the customer. The process of making a purchase from your website should be as easy as possible. You can optimise for it by displaying reviews on the checkout page, but make sure that they do not distract the customer from completing the purchase.

5. Post-Purchase Behaviour

In this stage, customers decide whether the purchase was worth it. This stage will determine if they decide to return to you for future purchases and if they recommend your brand to others. To increase the chances of returning customers and referrals, you need to have a post-purchase strategy that encourages future engagement. Return customers make up a significant fraction of a store’s total revenue, so make sure that you have a good strategy for the post-purchase stage.

You can encourage further engagement from a customer by requesting them to leave a review. It will help you better understand your performance while providing valuable user-generated content that can help attract more customers. You should also consider setting up a loyalty program that rewards customers for their continued business with your brand. Customers who are part of a loyalty program offer a higher lifetime value than customers who are not.

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