I had planned for buying a television for over a month now because the existing TV in my house has been malfunctioning for a long time now. Even after repairing it, several issues were caused by it such as losing its color after a short while. Though I had planned to purchase it during

My family has been thinking about buying a hybrid car rather than a simple petrol car because it is more eco-friendly and not only that, this car proves to be more reliable. Therefore, my family chose that a new car will be purchased by the end of the month. I believed it to be a good chance of completing this assignment as well by keeping this purchase in mind. It would fulfill the requirements of this report as well. Therefore, I have chosen to include this purchase in this report and analyze it.

I have decided to include the purchase of a laptop for my studies in this report as well. Since this product is also not an everyday product that we use, I will be using this in this paper. The company of the Laptop was Apple and there were other alternatives for the product as well but I chose to purchase this one and I will be discussing about the reasons in the part of analysis.

In this report, all the decisions and intentions will be analyzed using the Howard and Sheth Model. This model actually depicted a flow of the information that move through 4 main elements which include social and marketing stimuli, information and attention search, choice and comprehension of a brand, and purchase (Yoon, et al., 2012).

The perceived issue in the first purchase was which television to choose because there are countless brands on the market and it has always been difficult to choose among numerous brands because all of them have different specifications and they seem to be providing peculiar features which are not available in other brands. This was the perceived problem along with the issue of budget that we had a limit in terms of cost which we didn’t wish to cross at all. We were willing to purchase a good television but we certainly didn’t want its cost to cross the budget limit that we had set. In terms of the car, the issue was which car to choose within the Toyota brand because there are a few hybrid cars with almost the same specifications. There was Prius and then there was Corolla as well. Therefore, the perceived issue in this case was to choose a car that fit not only the requirements but was also reliable in terms of caliber and mileage. Even though there are several car brands that offer hybrid cards, we have had a long run with Toyota and that is the reason why we didn’t want to choose a car from another brand. There was no perceived problem when it came to the purchase of Apple laptop because I had already decided upon this product for a long time. I knew all about its specifications and its price which allowed me to prepare my expectations and my budget from the start.

Now, if I were to analyze these decisions according to the Howard and Sheth consumer decision making model, I would say that in the case of Television, the primary need to replace the broken television at home. We were seemingly attracted by the Samsung Company because there was a promotion on the product that we sought out. There was a discount which was the first thing that attracted not only me but also my father. This was the primary element that caused us to be attracted to the Samsung television. Moreover, the way this product was being advertised caught our eyes as well. There was an advertisement being played on the television which showed senior citizens sitting on the couch and viewing the television with ease. It explains that the audience being targeted by it was old men. This advertisement proved to be quite effective in attracting my father and all the features of that television was being displayed in the ad. In case of the car, we had searched the internet for online comparisons between the hybrid sources. This was how our problem was solved and came to the decision of checking the Toyota Prius.

All of these purchases were not ritual at all because we never bought products from these brands. These products were new to us because even though we had the products that were substituting but they were not as good as these ones and they were also manufactured by completely different organizations. Outlets of companies, online websites, and television advertisements were considered for making these purchases. These were the sources which were considered for making the decision about whether to buy a specific product or not (Ahmed, Ullah, & Alam, 2014).

There were several other alternatives to the products that we had chosen. For instance, in the category of televisions, there were several other brands as well including Panasonic, Sony, and even LG. In the category of hybrid cars, we did not consider other brands because we had been purchasing cars from Toyota for a long time and we knew that the organization made only reliable vehicles. Therefore, we didn’t feel any need to consider another company and its products along with Toyota. However, there was another alternative to Prius and it was Corolla with almost the same features. In terms of Apple laptop, there were other alternatives like Dell and HP. All of these other brands were excluded because they could not just provide the same features as the ones which we required. For instance, for the television, there were features in the Samsung TV that we wanted along with the fact that it had a discount as well. When it came to the car, we chose Prius over Corolla because it was not that efficient in terms of battery as Prius proved to be more reliable and it had advanced features as well. This was the reason why we chose this car. I have been quite fond of the products of Apple because this company has always proved to deliver only the most reliable products. The features that it provided could not be matched by any other company. According to the decision making model, it can be said that we were attracted by advertisement, the quality, and also the brand recognition.

In this criteria of purchase, we directly compared the products by analyzing their features and finding the information from the internet. So I can say that I not only used the criteria of online comparison but also direct comparison which explained which product is better than which one.

I was attracted a lot by the advertisement that all the brands were showing along with other consumers who were praising the brands for their high-quality products. For instance, I can definitely say that one of the most important reasons why I purchased the Samsung Television because of the attractiveness and preciseness of the advertisement. It had struck my father on an emotional level because the advertisement was specifically made for old people. For my Apple laptop, I cannot say that only advertisement affected me and caused to buy the product. I have been purchasing products from Apple for a long time and I know that minimum errors occur in the products which are created by this organization. If I were to analyze these decisions, I would say that it was the impression that Apple left on me which made me loyal to the company that I am willing to purchase products from only this company.

I was certainly satisfied with my purchases because they were made after a long evaluation of the products. I had planned along with my family to buy these products since the last month and it gave us a long time to evaluate our decision and think about other alternatives. However, upon inspection, we only came across these brands as they fulfilled the requirements that we had. According to the decision making model, our needs played a significant role in leading us to these brands. For instance, my father wanted a television that was very easy to use and affordable as well. My father has been quite conservative and that is why when he saw both discount and advertisement, he chose to purchase it. I definitely did not deal with the post-purchase cognitive dissonance because we knew about the products that we were purchasing (Atrill, 2014).

The most critical and expensive purchase was of the hybrid car and my father anticipated it a lot. Our last car had been inefficient in term of not only features but also its mileage. Therefore, we were a little afraid that whether we were making the right choice of purchasing this hybrid car or not. However, upon test driving the car, my father had been assured that the car fulfilled all the initial requirements that he had. Furthermore, since its cost was also within the limit of budget set by my father, we didn’t suffer from cognitive dissonance at all. In accordance with the decision making model, a decision is more strengthened if the customer has had a past experience with the company. Therefore, I can say that our purchases have affected us and we have become loyal towards the companies. Since they fulfilled our requirements, we now understand that they are capable organizations (Economist & Kourdi, 2015).

According to the decision-making strategy, it is the primary need of a consumer that urges him or her to think about purchasing a product. In my case, there are needs which caused me and my father to think about buying products. The very first need was the replacement of broken television and car. Technology has been advancing at a rapid speed and numerous inventions have been made which prove to be not only affordable but also more reliable. When we saw the advertisement of a hybrid car on television and we thought about buying it as well because of its countless benefits and features. The same can be said about the television as well. However, the need for Apple laptop was different. For instance, I never had a laptop to begin with so when I heard my friends talking about a new apple laptop, I thought about checking it as well. Therefore, it was not advertisement but personal relations which caused me to think about buying a product as well. In addition, I also wanted to appear somehow associated with latest technology. That is why I chose this product besides the fact that I had already purchased some products from Apple. I knew about their reliability and all these motivations became the reason for my purchase. However, I believe that the major role was played by my own perception as I knew that the products of Apple are trustworthy and they can be purchased (Kotler, 2008).

In terms of the purchase of Samsung TV, there was a social influence on my father. I might have been affected by just the advertisement but my father had heard another customer talking about the television. That person had already bought the television and he was pleased with the outcomes because the TV proved to be quite efficient in the consumption of electricity and was user-friendly. When it came to the purchase of Toyota Prius, both social and cultural element had become active. For instance, the use of hybrid cars was becoming more common which affected our decision along with the fact that we talked with the existing customers of this car. Their experienced explained that they were not disappointed with the purchase of this car. This became a vital reason why my father decided to purchase Prius instead of Corolla. Since this is quite an irregular and costly purchase, my father wanted the risks to be as minimum as possible. In the light of decision making theory, not only the internal but external factors as well affected the decision of my father (Moon, 2010).

Lastly, in the case of Apple laptop, there were both cultural and social factors which affected my decision of purchasing. In addition, my own perception also played a part in making me believe that this was the right choice. For instance, my friends had conversed with me about the latest product and it had weighed on my mind. In order to investigate more, I used the internet for searching about this product and came across a lot of information. I was further persuaded to purchase this product because I had seen many other students use a similar product and my intent became stronger in terms of buying only the Apple laptop. My own perception played the part in making me choose this product because I have had bought some products from the company and I know that the products which they manufacture are not unreliable. They are worth buying.

Overall, our needs were to replace the existing products and facilitate the ongoing processes which made us research on the internet. We viewed the advertisements on the television and talked with people for the comparison of products. In addition, we analyzed according to our perceptions which brands were better and came to our final decisions. It was then that we finally purchased the products and were satisfied with their use.

References of Analysis of Consumer Behavior

Ahmed, M., Ullah, S., & Alam, A. (2014, Jan). Importance of Culture in Success of International Marketing. Retrieved from

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259962350_Importance_of_Culture_in_Success_of_International_Marketing

Atrill, P. (2014). Financial Management for Decision Makers (7 ed.). Pearson Higher Ed.

Economist, T., & Kourdi, J. (2015). Business Strategy: A guide to effective decision-making. PublicAffairs.

Kotler, P. (2008). Principles of Marketing. Pearson Education India.

Moon, H.-C. (2010). Global Business Strategy: Asian Perspective. World Scientific.

Yoon, C., Gonzalez, R., Bechara, A., Berns, G. S., Dagher, A. A., Dubé, L., & Huettel, S. A. (2012). Decision neuroscience and consumer

decision making. Marketing Letters, 23(2), 473-485.