Samsung: Consumer Decision Making Process

Stages of consumer decision-making process

Question:

Discuss About The Consumer Decision Making Process Samsung?

Consumer Decision Making Process (CDMP) refers to the process which the consumers follow before making purchase decision to purchase products. The following are the five stages of consumer decision making process(CDMP) which a consumer would go through while purchasing a Samsung Galaxy S8:

A consumer at recognises the need to buy a product at this stage by recognising a requirement of his which the product can fulfil. For example, the target consumer may feel the need to buy a Samsung Galaxy S8 to get access to the latest mobile applications or to be able to send and receive mails on his mobile phone. The psychological influences like needs and motivation play a very important role in deciding what to purchase. For example, if the customer wants to use a high-end expensive smart phone, he would be motivated to buy a Samsung Galaxy. The need and motivation to purchase a product become active at this stage(Solomon 2014).

Customers at this stage tries to gather information about the product he wants to buy. He consults his friends, relatives and acquaintances to know about their views about the product. He watches advertisements and public sources of information about the product like newspapers ad magazines. The personality and self-conception of the customer play very significant role at this stage. The information the customers gain from sources like advertisement and newspapers impact the perceptions consumers develop about products. For example, Samsung Galaxy is advertised as a high-end smart phone which a lot of features and capable of supporting multiple applications(Wen et al. 2014). These customers match these perception with their personalities to decide whether to buy products or not. For example, the middle and the upper class people with high disposable income and the taste for high end electronic products would purchase Samsung Galaxy S8. This stage of information collection is important because the information customers gain from various sources decide their purchase decisions of products. The positive information and reviews gained about a product encourages purchasing the product whereas negative reviews and perception prevents customers from purchasing products. It can also be inferred from the discussion that this stage is capable of affecting the sale of goods in the companies, which in turn influence their revenue generation(Hu, Koh and Reddy 2014).

The customers at this stage evaluate the information they gain about a product from various sources like newspapers, official websites of companies and reviews of acquaintances. The customers try to choose the best available product in the market suited to their tastes, perceptions, fear and attitude. The consumers perceive big brands as a assurances for high quality and value for money. They have perception that less expensive products are of inferior quality or utility. These perceptions about risks factors of using less known brands create fear in the minds of the consumers and repel customers from purchasing products. For example, Samsung Galaxy S8 is a high-end product owned by Samsung, one of the biggest international electronic brands. This strong brand image of Samsung reflects its positive customer reviews and high rate of customer satisfaction it generates. This strong brand image elevates the risk and fear consumers have regarding the new products. The customers choose the smart phone set because they perceive it as among the best products in the market(Ballesteros-Gómez et al. 2014).

Impact of customer needs and motivations on purchasing decision

The customers at this stage actually buy the products based on the information they gain from the various sources like newspaper and advertisements. For example, the customer evaluate the various sources of information like newspaper and decides to buy Samsung Galaxy S8.

The customers at this stage review the products after they have consumed them. They consider whether the products have met their expectations and the promise generated by the advertisements. If they consider that the products have met their expectations and they are satisfied, they influence they purchase decisions of other consumers by advising them to buy the products. This results in repeat business for the companies and generates high revenue for them. For example, if  a consumer is satisfied by using Samsung Galaxy S8, he would advise other consumers to buy the product. Similarly, if a consumer is dissatisfied by using a product, he would advice other consumers not to buy the product(Agnihotri et al. 2016).

Some situational factors like retail environment can potentially influence CDMP by motivating a consumer to purchase certain products. The situational factors can be of four types namely, personal situational factors, environmental situational factors, emotional situational factors and life cycle situational factors. Personal situational factors refer to proximity, intimacy and nature of personal relationship consumers have with shopkeepers. Environmental situational factors like geography and retail environment influence the purchase decisions of consumers. Emotional situational factors consist of emotional perception consumers have about products. For example, if a consumer has positive perception about Samsung he would be motivated to purchase Samsung Galaxy in the purchase stage of CDMP. He would be motivated by positive reviews from newspapers and advertisement in the evaluation of alternative stage which would eventually encourage him to buy the product(Collier et al. 2015).

Retail environment refers to the environment in which products are sold to consumers and affect the CDMP at the evaluating alternative stage. For example, if the retail environment consists of a Samsung outlet, it would encourage consumers to buy Samsung Galaxy S8 to a higher degree. This is because at a Samsung outlet the consumer is not left the option to check out mobile smart phones of other brands unlike in ordinary retail store. Automatically he would be encouraged to buy Samsung Galaxy at the purchase stage. Again, in the digital retail environment the customers are able to view various competitive brands, which influence their purchase decision. Thus it can be inferred from the discussion that retail environment becomes active during certain stages of consumer decision making process like the purchase and enforce buying actions of consumers(Samsung in. 2017).

Conclusion:

It can be concluded that consumers go through several stages like need recognition, information search and finally evaluating the information about the products before purchasing products. The situational factors like retail environment have a very deep impact on the purchase decision of the consumers. It is recommended that Samsung should take steps to increase its market penetration and optimise customer purchase decisions.

The following are the recommendations to Samsung to facilitate purchase from target consumers and ensure customer satisfaction:

1. It is recommended that Samsung should increase its market presence to gain deeper market penetration. It can be implemented by opening more outlets which would allow it to advertise its products to the target consumer base. The customers in the Samsung stores would not able to compare other brands which would encourage them to purchase Samsung phones. Samsung should implement it to achieve more sale of its products and earn higher revenue.
2. It is recommended that Samsung should try to strengthen its brand image in the market. It can be implemented by making more positive customer reviews visible on its websites. It should be implemented to help Samsung in creating a stronger brand image in the minds of the consumers during the evaluation of alternative stage which would encourage them to buy Samsung smart phones.
3. It is recommended that Samsung must also introduce Samsung Galaxy models with more features and applications. It can be implemented by bringing about exhaustive research and development. This will help the company to serve more customer needs and maximise customer satisfaction.

References:

Agnihotri, R., Dingus, R., Hu, M.Y. and Krush, M.T., 2016. Social media: Influencing customer satisfaction in B2B sales. Industrial Marketing Management, 53, pp.172-180.

Ballesteros-Gómez, A., Brandsma, S.H., De Boer, J. and Leonards, P.E.G., 2014. Analysis of two alternative organophosphorus flame retardants in electronic and plastic consumer products: resorcinol bis-(diphenylphosphate)(PBDPP) and bisphenol A bis (diphenylphosphate)(BPA-BDPP). Chemosphere, 116, pp.10-14.

Collier, J.E., Moore, R.S., Horky, A. and Moore, M.L., 2015. Why the little things matter: Exploring situational influences on customers' self-service technology decisions. Journal of Business Research, 68(3), pp.703-710.

Hu, N., Koh, N.S. and Reddy, S.K., 2014. Ratings lead you to the product, reviews help you clinch it? The mediating role of online review sentiments on product sales. Decision support systems, 57, pp.42-53.

Pescher, C., Reichhart, P. and Spann, M., 2014. Consumer decision-making processes in mobile viral marketing campaigns. Journal of interactive marketing, 28(1), pp.43-54.

Samsung in. (2017). Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ - Price, Specs and Features. [online] Available at: https://www.samsung.com/in/smartphones/galaxy-s8/ [Accessed 13 Sep. 2017].

Solomon, M.R., 2014. Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being (Vol. 10). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Wen, C., R. Prybutok, V., Blankson, C. and Fang, J., 2014. The role of E-quality within the consumer decision making process. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 34(12), pp.1506-1536.