Analyzing Consumer Behavior and Decision Making for Apple iPhone 7

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of consumer behavior and decision-making processes related to the Apple iPhone 7. It begins by outlining the five stages of consumer decision-making: need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, and post-purchase behavior. The report then emphasizes the importance of consumer mapping for marketers to understand the customer journey and bridge gaps between sales, marketing, and operations. It further explores the Black Box Model, highlighting how consumer beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, and lifestyle influence buying behavior. The report compares the decision-making processes in B2B and B2C contexts, including research methods. Finally, it evaluates how marketers can influence the various stages of the decision-making process for both B2C and B2B consumers, providing a detailed examination of consumer behavior within the context of the Apple iPhone 7.

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
AND INSIGHT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO1..................................................................................................................................................3
P1 Explanation and stages of consumer decision making for a particular product or service....3
P2 Important for marketer to map path to purchase and understand consumer decision
making. .......................................................................................................................................5
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................6
P3 Comparison between the decision-making process in B2B and B2C :.................................6
P4 Various methods of research in decision-making process in B2B and B2C : ......................8
LO 3...............................................................................................................................................10
P5 Factors that influence the decision-making process of B2C and B2B :..............................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Consumer behaviour is the study which reveals how individual customers, groups select
to buy goods and services to satisfy their needs and wants. It refers to the action of the
consumers in the marketplace and underlying motives for those actions. The study of consumer
behaviour assumes that consumers play key role in the marketplace. Apple Inc. is an American
multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino and California. IPhone 7 is phone
that is reliable and beneficial as it has unique features which are needed in day to day life
practices, it has a unique slim design and easy to carry. Customer demand is very much high
with the unique features brought by Apple. The company develops consumer electronics,
computer software and online services. The report will include five stages of consumer decision
making for Apple's product and why consumer mapping is important for marketer to make a path
to purchase and understand consumer decision making. The study will evaluate different
approaches to market research and methods used for understanding decision making process both
in B2B and B2C. Further, the report will evaluate how marketers can influence the different
stages of decision making process of B2B and B2C.
LO1
P1 Explanation and stages of consumer decision making for a particular product or service.
There are several stages in consumer decision making which are very important for
business. Consumer decision making process involves the consumers to identify their need,
gather information, evaluate alternatives and then make their buying decision. The consumer
decision making behaviour is a complex procedure and evolves everything starting from problem
recognition to post purchase activities (Piscicelli, Cooper and Fisher, 2015). There are five stages
of consumer decision making which are mentioned below:
Need recognition
Need recognition occurs when consumer determines their need. The buyer will analyse
that they are in the need of a product or not. Here the buyer is thinking of buying an apple
product which is Apple iPhone 7. The consumer will identify the needs of an iPhone because of
its specific features. As electronics are things which people wants but actually don't need them,
with advancement in technology and new marketing strategies for these device make them feel
and specify and target its need So people have to actually analyse that they are in the need of an

iPhone 7 or they are influenced by effective marketing strategies (Hofacker, Malthouse and
Sultan, 2016).
Information search
This is the second stage after the need recognition. When consumer actually recognise
that they need an apple product. So buyer will search for the information of the product, search
can be internal, external or both. An internal search is the process of recalling past information
stored in the memory and external search is the process of seeking information in the outside
environment. The consumers will search that what are the features of an apple iphone7. The
features they need is there in the apple product or not.
Evaluation of alternatives
Consumer also search for other products that what other substitute company is providing and
make comparison between the products. This stage is important as consumer don't wont to regret
their buying decision. There ar
e various options available with the buyers with the best preferences and available of choices in
the market. There are many objectives for a buyer it is defined what type of features a buyer
needs and needs of the product. (Venkatraman and et.al., 2015).
Purchase decision
This is the stage where buyers make final purchase decision. At this stage, the consumer
has evaluated all the facts and arrives at a logical conclusion which may be based on influence
from marketing campaigns or upon emotional connection or personal experience or combination
of both. After gathering information about all the other products and evaluating them on the
above mention basis the consumer makes final decision that they should buy an apple product or
not. The consumer must be sure at this stage at this is the final stage as once product is purchased
the decision cannot be changed.
Post purchase behaviour
The purchase of product is followed by post purchase which refers to analyse that
whether the product purchased by the consumer was satisfactory or not. As consumer decided to
purchase apple iPhone 7 so how well their expectations are met, determines whether the
purchaser is satisfied or dissatisfied with the purchase. When the consumer is satisfied and happy

with the apple product, will also influence other consumer to buy the same product this helps in
increasing the customer base for apple. And opposite in the case whether the buyers are not
satisfied, this create negative impact on the brand as it may reduce the customer base of apple.
P2 Important for marketer to map path to purchase and understand consumer decision making.
Consumer mapping is a way to visualise the customer experience and how they interact
with the business. This process creates and overview of the customer experience and maps that
how buyers move through the sales funnel. Importance of consumer mapping-
Bridging the gaps between sales, marketing and operations
Consumer mapping helps the firm in bridging the gap between sales. As marketers get
information about the needs of the consumer. Apple will produce the products which are
required by the customers. This approach helps the organization in making marketing strategies,
as which marketing approach attracts more buyers will be adopted by the firm. Consumer
mapping helps the organization in executing the operations and thus assist in increasing the sales.
Better understanding the consumers
Advantage of consumer mapping is that it provides information that how people reacts in
different circumstances with the potential to identify operational inefficiencies. This process
helps in gathering more information from the buyers. This helps the Apple company in knowing
the needs of the consumers, that what products they need, any improvement required can be
made in the product. By understanding the buyers need and intention more new products can be
launched in the market by Apple (Piscicelli, Cooper and Fisher, 2015).
Building an emotional connection
Illustration 1: decision making process

Buying a product or subscribing to a new service can be a very emotional process. This
approach helps apple in building an emotional connection with the consumers. As knowing the
customers feeling is important for business. Any product consumers buy only when they trust the
brand, for holding the customers for a longer time it is very important that their trust must not be
broken.
Helps in development of products
By this approach, data can be gathered which helps the marketer in gathering information
about the needs of consumers. Consumer mapping helps the Apple in making any change in the
products as consumers are not satisfied with the features, so new features can be launched by the
company. If the buyers are not satisfied with the quality provided company can make changes
according to that. Thus, consumer mapping assists the development of Apple products.
Marketers are responsible as they provide a brief feedback to the company about the
product and customers response towards the product. Which can help them in providing the
strategies needed for the product's existence in the marketplace.
M1 Marketers responding to consumer decision making process
Black box model: The black box model of consumer behaviour identifies the stimuli for
buying behaviour. This model gives details about how buying behaviour of consumers changes.
The black box model comprises of two components, the buyer’s characteristics and buyer’s
decision process (Venkatraman and et.al., 2015, pp.21-29). There are several characteristics by
which buying behaviour impacts these are as follows:
Beliefs/Attitude
The buying behaviour of consumers are impacted by their beliefs and attitude. As belief
plays an important role it can be positive or negative towards a particular product or services.
Consumers have certain specific feelings towards some products or brand. So if people like and
trusts the product iPhone7 of Apple brand then only they will purchase the products otherwise
they will not, so in this sense belief impacts the buying behaviour of people. So this assist
marketer in producing the products which match the belief of buyers.
Perception
Perception affects the behaviour of consumer as different people have different
perception towards a particular product or service. According to which they make purchase, as
some people wishes to buy flagship phones of Apple and sell iPhone7 they will buys that and

others who not prefers these types of phone will not purchase that. The perception also includes
pricing of products, brand values and ethics, quality provided and packaging. So it is important
for marketer to know perception of consumers and then manufacture a product.
Lifestyle
Lifestyle impacts a lot in buying behaviour. As the buyers buys only that stuffs which are
suitable to their lifestyle. As lifestyle plays a huge role in influencing consumer behaviour.
iPhones are costly as compared to other products available in market. Iphone7 comes out with a
different pricing strategy. People who have high living standard will purchase products of high
price, so this helps marketer to manufacture products which satisfy the life style of consumers
(Zhang and Benyoucef, 2016, pp.21-29).
LO 2
P3 Comparison between the decision-making process in B2B and B2C:
B2B Decision Making Process B2C Decision Making Process
It is the first process of decision-making where
the product value is low and it's had low
strategic importance among the business
clients. Client company are not paying
attention to the price of the product's which can
give company a huge margin. For example –,
the pricing of the product is low but then also
consumers doesn't tend to buy that product. At
that time client organisation were not aware of
such smart watch so the consumer's are not
attracted towards that watch.
It is the very first step in the decision-making
process which recognition of needs. Purchase
will not be happened if consumer doesn't need
the product and services of the company. The
need of the client can be evaluated by internal
and external stimuli. For example – Apple had
launched iPhone in 2007 with its first
generation then with evaluation of the needs
and demands of the consumers and new
updates in the technology the company had
launched the iPhone 3G in 2011 the process
carried on further and currently they had
introduced the iPhone 11 Pro Max with the
updated features according to the needs of the
consumer's.
It is the second process of decision-making in
which the pricing of the product is low but it is
The next step is information gathering
techniques and evaluation of alternatives now s

highly strategic important to the business
clients. The client organisation are eagerly
waiting to purchase such product. For example,
Apple had launched the MacBook Pro in 2009,
the pricing of the product is low but
consumer's eagerly to buy that product and it
was so much in trend that time every
individual want its own MacBook.
days in the hi-tech world more technologies are
updated and consumers are more friendly with
the online methods and by searching the
product they can find an appropriate product
with the availability of similar alternatives of
the product available in the market. For
example, Apple is promoting its product with
the help of SEO so that consumer's will easily
get through their products online and the
products are also available on the other
retailing online web portals and applications.
And thus consumer can easily compare the
product with other similar product available in
the market.
The Third process of decision-making involves
the high pricing of the product with the low
strategic importance to its clients. The clients
would bargain to diminish the extra expenses
which are involved in the product. For
example, Apple had launch iPhone 6 in 2014
with the extraordinary high price clinets need
to purchase that product but due to the high
pricing consumer will not purchase the product
thus the product does not survive in the market
for long term as business cleints wants that the
pricing of the product must be low(Zhang and
Benyoucef, 2016, pp.21-29).
The further step is to select an option which is
appropriate for the consumer according to their
needs and demands. After evaluation of the
alternatives the decision-making is performed
to select an appropriate option for the
purchasing which fulfils the needs of the
customers. The product value, quality of the
product and services which is offered by the
company are trustworthy and reliable. For
example, Consumer will select the suitable
Apple product with the help of comparison and
will select after the comparison and evaluation
of products from other available alternative in
the market.
The last process of decision-making involves
the high value of the product and high
The last step includes the implementation of
the decisions and also include the review and

importance among the clients. The clients will
purchase the product even if the pricing of the
product is high as they are provided with the
best output of the demands which they ask for.
For example, Apple has introduced the Apple
TV (4th generation) the pricing of the product is
high as compare to their TV in the market but
then also high number of clients wants to
purchase such product as the TV contains a
specific feature which differentiate itself from
the other TV available in the market.
evaluation of the decision. After the selection
of the product the consumer buys the product
which is suitable according to the needs and
demands of them. The product is best in all
cases which are pricing, quality and quantity
etc. The consumer will also review the product
after use whether the product fulfils the needs
and demands or not. This review by the
consumer will help the company to update their
product to cope up with any deficiency in their
product. For example, Apple has been updating
its products according to the reviews made by
their customer's for their product this help
company to satisfy the needs and demand of
the consumer's efficiently.
P4 Various methods of research in decision-making process in B2B and B2C:
Research methods help the company in decision-making. By this different research
methods, a company can easily avail through the needs and demands of their consumer's and
cope up with any deficiency in their product and services and upgrade their product according to
the requirements.
There are two different types of research approaches which are described below -
Primary Market Research Method –
Primary market research involves the collection of data directly from the potential
consumers of the company. In this research different techniques are used which are surveys, field
test, interviews and observation etc. In this method feedback is collected from the customers
from every aspect which can be emotionally, socially, rationally, culturally and economically etc.
With the help of feedbacks by customer's company can evaluate the demands of the new and
existing product in the market and any improvement in the product if required. The techniques
are as follows -
 Market Research Survey – Survey is the basic techniques used by the companies for the
market research. Survey can be a small feedback or an extensive web survey used by the

companies (Stancu, Haugaard and Lähteenmäki, 2016, pp.21-29). Apple use the web
surveys technique to avail the feedback by their customer's. Apple collect their data with
the help of IFrame, in which pop-up is created when any visitor visits the website of the
company, so they can easily collect the feedback from their customers and avails through
the needs and improvement in the existing and new products and implement the change if
required. For example if Apple conduct survey then it would be able to know more about
needs of buyers in mobile phones and laptpn.by this way entity would be able to offer
them same products and also will be able to resolve their issues.
 Online Questionnaire - It is the most popular form of survey, as it can reach to the
maximum number of people. Apple also uses the online questionnaire for the survey so
that they can collect feedback from the wide number of people. The company prepares
the questionnaire which fits all their products like Phones, TV, Ipad, Smart watch,
MacBook etc. The Questions can easily changed and modified according to the needs and
requirements of the survey. This helps the company to gather the feedback from the
consumer's and avails the satisfaction level of the consumer for their products. Apple can
also use questionnaire method, it can ask questions with consumers of Apple those who
are using its services. They can give review about existing products so entity will be able
to identify actual problem in products and will be able to raise quality of existing items
effectively.
Secondary Market Research Method –
Secondary research includes the existing data for their research. Existing data further
summarized and combined to raise the effectiveness of the research. Secondary research involves
the research materials which are published in reports of the research and the similar documents.
These documents can be collected by the websites, public libraries and already filled surveys
data.
 Data gettable on the internet – It is the popular source of collecting the data through
internet (Hofacker, Malthouse and Sultan, 2016, pp.897-904). The data is free of cost so
the companies doesn't need to pay any amount to download exist data. Apple uses this
method to collect the data they collect the data which is available on the internet and thus
they avail and modified their product according to that data. The company collect the
data from trusted and authentic website so that the data collected is appropriate. It is the

cheapest method to avail through the needs and demands of the consumer's. And get the
reviews by the consumers for their products so that they can easily update their product
according to if it is necessary and the Apple do, so they implement change and upgrade
their product time to time so that they their customers are fully satisfied with their
products. For example: Apple can use statistical data available of each company’s site
that how many products are sold in this year and previous year which will help in
analysing actual demand and enterprise would be able to meet that demand significantly.
 Commercial information sources – Commercial information source is very common
source to collect the data which includes the journals, newspapers, radio, magazines and
TV. This information source contains the accurate information on political agenda,
economic developments, demographic segmentation market research and similar subjects
(Bian and et.al., 2016). Apple also uses this source to collect data and information about
their product as they can evaluate the popularity of their product in the market, and they
can easily update their product according to the market trend. Thus, they can also assume
that what number of peoples are satisfied with their products as the more popularity of
product among the customer shows the high quantity of satisfaction.
LO 3
P5 Factors that influence the decision-making process of B2C and B2B:
Market research methods helps the company to avail through the market research through
various techniques this help the Apple to collect the feedback from the consumer's from different
sources as that they can be used for the up gradation of the product and fulfilling the needs and
demand of their customer's. It is very helpful for company to avail that whether the consumers
are satisfied with their products or not more the satisfied customer more the profit margin due to
increase in sale (Erevelles, Fukawa and Swayne, 2016, pp.897-904). There are many factors of
market research which influence the consumer's decision-making process effectively. This may
include –
There are various factors that affect purchase decision of B2B business, these are
explained as below:
Economic factor: It is the element that impact on purchasing capacity of buyers. If interest rate is
higher then it may affect value if currency which will affect spending capacity of consumers. In

such condition people will not spend much amount which will affect the purchasing decsionof
B2B business.
Competition :it is another element that affect buying decision of B2B business, if competitors are
making changes in the prices then would influence consumers which would create problem in
retaining consumers hence it will affect profit of the firm and its purchasing decision will be
affected.
Factors affecting B2C business are described as below:
Quality of products: it is considered as major factor which influence the decision of B2C firms,
as companies are required to offer quality goods so that consumers retain in business, if
enterprise fails to offer them such kind of products then it would help in satisfying consumers.
 Personality - Personality is the factor which directly affects the buying behaviour
decision of the consumer. The consumer will purchase the product according to their
personality what they need and want all depends on their personality it plays a major role
in the consumer decision-making. A business man, industrialist, rich man or high
economic class people will purchase the products of Apple to maintain their class in the
society as the apple products is the big brand and the products of the company are
expensive which can't be afforded by the middle and lower class.
 Motivation- Motivation also plays a major role in context to the company, the products
which are manufactured by the company should be according to the different
personalities as there can be a product for the high class then there also the product for
middle class that can be afforded by the middle class consumer's (Carlucci and et.al.,
2015, pp.4249-4258). Apple kept in mind, and they develop the product for every class
they develop product with the high price and medium price is that both of the class can
afford the product of their brand. They also upgrade and update their products according
to the needs and demands of the consumer's which helps the company to be the best
brand in the market with the first choice for consumer's.
 Learning and Perception – Learning and perception is the process of adopting new, or
implementing existing, knowledge, skills, behaviours, preferences or values. Learning
has a Psychological influence on the behaviour of the consumer's behaviour. The
psychological variable directly affects the buying decision process of the consumers. This