Short-Answer Questions:

Read Chapters 1 and 5 carefully. Reflect on your recent experience of buying an important product (say Product X made by Company Y), which you spent a relatively considerable amount of time and effort researching, e.g., a car, a house, a laptop, a digital camera, a TV, or a vacation in Hawaii. Answer the following questions. 

1. Describe in detail the five stages of your consumer decision-making process:

A) Problem Recognition. What needs did you buy the product to satisfy? How dd you realize your need(s)?

B) Information Search. What information sources did you check?

C) Evaluation of Alternatives. What evaluative criteria did you use? Why did you use them?

D) Product Choice. List and compare the benefits and costs of all the alternatives in your consideration set. Use a table when necessary. Why did you pick the Product X? What heuristics did you use to make your choice?

E) Post Purchase Evaluation. Are you satisfied with your purchase? How does the Product X meet your expectation?

2. Discussion how the Product X/ Company Y won your business, i.e., how it beats its competition at each of the stages of your decision-making. Based on your experience, give advice to the seller to help improve its marketing plan at each step of the consumer decision-making process.

3. Analyze how the following internal influences and social influences affected your decision-making process.

A) Motivation. Use Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to analyze the need(s) that you bought the Product X to meet.

B) Learning. How did you learn the benefits and costs of the Product X? Which learning model fits your learning process better? Behavioral learning or cognitive learning.

C) Attitude. Do you have any lasting evaluation of the Product C and/or the Company Y? Describe the three components of your attitude. 

D) Personality. Describe those personality traits that influence your purchase. 

E) Other influences such as culture, social class,, opinion leaders, group membership, and sub-culture.