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Impact of Internet on Consumer Decision Making Process

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Added on  2019-09-22

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This article discusses the impact of internet on consumer decision making process. It highlights how internet has made it easier for consumers to conduct an information search during the consumer decision making process. It also talks about how online consumer reviews affect the performance of the product. The article cites various researches and studies to support its claims.

Impact of Internet on Consumer Decision Making Process

   Added on 2019-09-22

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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. 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 was 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 as there are a plethora of options with added features. She even had an option of reading the reviews being given by other customers. She never liked discussing about products with anyone else but for her these reviews were enjoyable. 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. 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 fromaround 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 theprices 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.
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Therefore, with high-involvement, not only price, but various other factors were considered which became critical in her decision-making process. 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). 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 storesand 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 theonline shopping option is open for 24 hours a day, every day (Hofacker, 2001; Wang et al., 2005). 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.,
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