Ask a question from expert
Toaster as Prime Priority for Grace | Case Study
7 Pages2755 Words295 Views
Added on 2019-10-12
Toaster as Prime Priority for Grace | Case Study
Added on 2019-10-12
BookmarkShareRelated Documents
Question 1. The technology and its development has made it possible for the consumers to access everything readily using the methods like media sources, internet, magazine etc. With an easier availability of information, the consumers and their decision-making process has also influenced. This is additionally enhanced by high accessibility of internet with fast and convenient use. Additionally, the involvement and its degree poses a question on buyer experience, products being purchased for the first times and if the buyer requires comparatively more involvement than he usually does (Boyd et al., 2002).In this case study, a toaster became the prime priority for Grace. This eventually became a low-involvement process for Grace. In the initial phase, she didn’t spend much effort and time and the only factor in buying a toaster was price. But it has been seen that internet offers low as well as high involvement consumers a tremendous wealth of information on shopping items easily which motivated Grace in order to spend some considerable time in searching the toaster. Initially, Grace never liked discussing about products with anyone else but for her these reviews were enjoyable. She use to engage in routine response behavior and made automatic purchase decisions on the basis of limited information or the information that she had in the past. She never planned or had previous thought while purchasing the items and indulged in impulse buying. She simply bought things because she wanted them without further thought. Therefore her low involvement products are selected on the basis of her internal information search as she never realized the importance of spending cost for collection of external information regarding her product search. Then she started searching toasters online however with a wide range of choices, features, price comparison and reviews.With the conduction of external information, she found that buying anything online is not easy asthere are a plethora of options with added features. She even had an option of reading the reviews being given by other customers. With the help of internet her buying behavior has changed which has changed the practice of buying toaster online from low-involvement to high-involvement. She stopped indulging in routine response and instead chose to engage herself in anextended problem solving and ended up spending a considerable amount of time in comparing various criteria and aspects on the basis of products, price, delivery etc. Therefore, a lot of time
is consumed in figuring out whether the product being ordered is superior to other competing brands or not. Internet shopping has been one of the common source of information regarding theproducts and offers product reviews written by the consumers. Whereas, Epinions.com offers a consumer-generated review site. When Grace started spending hours on her research, depicting the change in her online behavior as she was eager to attain information on toasters. In terms of choosing a toaster in store, she is a low-involvement store but in internet, she is not. Grace searched over 100 toasters with around 150 reviews prior to finalizing her Dualit two-slice toaster. This was followed by evaluation of price comparison from around five Epinions online store. Further, she again depicted high-involvement in her decision-making process when she selected Amazon.com over Kitchen Etc.com despite of low price due to Amazon’s free-shipping policy and her past online purchasing experience from Amazon.com. In this case study, Grace came across Epinions and could easily have the option of comparing the prices which was helpful for her as every information was listed in the form of categories. All these factors have depicted that Grace was successful in establishing evaluative criteria as she evaluated her toaster on the basis of pricing, features, convenience, etc. as per her needs. She indulged in all the processes of high-involvement namely search for product information, product evaluation and product choice and purchase. During this process, she came across various criteria of toasters, she was not aware of initially. With high-involvement, not only price,but various other factors were considered which became critical in her decision-making process. Therefore, her level of interest was depicted by her involvement in the whole procedure of toaster buying. Question 2.Internet has made it easier for consumers to conduct an information search during the consumer decision making process. The collection of a wide range of data and information is easier using internet. It has been argued that internet has an enhanced role in personal and professional lives of people and people end up turning to various resources in internet on the basis of product categories and brands (Winer, 2009). Therefore, internet has been regarded as a valuable research tool for the online shoppers and also provides critically important information while
making purchasing decisions. Various researches have stated that online information makes the researching of product to be very efficient especially in the case of feature-rich product as the consumer can get to about the various added features in the product. However, it is not the only tool for gathering the information. Gathering of information is boosted using internet and it helpsin establishing the first step in the consumer decision-making. The need of gathering of information then helps in winnowing down the options and their range adding to the demand of more information. With easily gathered information, the consumer can then evaluate and compare the information so as to make the right decision. This stage is helping for the consumer for analyzing each hand every aspect of the product through various searches and can also consider alternative products as per his needs and wants. Additionally, the various aspects of the product like quality, size, price and quality can also be easily evaluated. This is difficult if the consumer decides to do this independently without internet usage. Although the evaluation process is sometimes seen to be time-consuming and difficult putting pressure on the consumer as it is difficult to decide upon the ideal product satisfying the needs of the customers (Ha et al, 2010). For example, Grace evaluated not only the price, but also the various features being offered by the toasters. This would have been a tiresome task if Grace visited offline stores and compared the shortlisted toasters. Internet is plays a vital role as it makes the option of shopping available for the customers around the clock as compared to the traditional stores as the online shopping option is open for 24 hours a day, every day (Hofacker, 2001; Wang et al., 2005). The online purchases and their frequency is seen to be highly affected by the characteristics of the perceived vendor onthe basis of the price competitiveness, quicker delivery or ease of cancelling the orders. This helps the customers to pose their questions and get support anytime as per their convenience (Hermes, 2000). Various researches have depicted that over 60 percent of people are seen to prefer to shop online as they want to avoid wailing lines and crows and 58 percent of people chose online shopping over traditional shopping as they can even shop after-hours when the traditional stores are closed (The Tech Faq, 2008). Internet also makes it easier for the consumers to avoid face-to-face interaction with the sales executive as the executives are seen to control and manipulate the consumers (Goldsmith and Flynn, 2005; Parks, 2008). Thus, internet allows people to make decision without any manipulation. Lastly, online shopping is easier as it can be done anywhere and anytime and has made life easier for the consumers (Childers et al.,
End of preview
Want to access all the pages? Upload your documents or become a member.
Related Documents
Impact of Internet on Consumer Decision Making Processlg...
|5
|1780
|138
Marketing Management Assignment (pdf)lg...
|11
|2348
|112
Customer Buying Behaviorlg...
|3
|692
|137
Donald B Global Expansionlg...
|15
|4274
|236
Consumer Purchasing Behaviour Analysis: Factors and Insightslg...
|21
|4675
|136
Consumer Decision Making Process: A Comprehensive Studylg...
|4
|1431
|74