Why and how customers make purchase decisions

All organisations need to develop the best possible understanding of how customers in their marketplace decide to make a purchase. If you are in business, you already have some idea of how this works, but the better the model you have of the processes involved, the more accurately and effectively you will be able to allocate your resources.

This small example is intended to illustrate different stages in the purchase decision for wine sold through supermarkets and off-licences.

The attributes that a product may actually have are interpreted or experienced by customers in different ways, and on the basis of these perceptions a buyer will form relationships with a number of alternative competing brands, with varying degrees of preference. At the point of purchase in the shop, a number of constraints and facilitators will affect how the buyer's preferences are applied to make the final purchase decision.

So what is the value of this kind of marketing analysis?

Firstly, we use it to make explicit a model that may never have been written down. This may reveal that there are several quite different models in the heads of key people in the organisation, leading to quite different and inconsistent allocation of resources.

Secondly, we can identify the weak areas in our understanding of how the process works and can then start to tackle these, perhaps using market research.

Thirdly, we can evaluate how our brand performs relative to competitors at each stage in the process, which in turn will give valuable guidance on where and how to focus our marketing effort.

Marketing Thinking from GCM Marketing Ltd. provides consultancy, advice and practical help with marketing analysis, marketing research, business and marketing strategy, marketing plans, marketing communications, brands & positioning, from a base in Scotland. Copyright © 2004, 2005,2006.