Question

Let’s start with a product everyone is familiar with. If you were going to purchase a new car, walk us through the steps you would go through in your purchase process. How does your process differ from the process detailed in the text? How does it differ from others in this thread?

Answer 1

The steps which I would follow while purchasing a car are:

• Need Identification- That i require a car.
• Researching about different companies and models which fall under my desired budget.
• Information about financial institutions which provide car loans, the rate of interest and how easy disbursal I am going to get.
• Reviews of different model finalised.
• Test drive of all those models selected to consider for final purchase.
• Selection of the brand and variant and checking about its warranties.
• Application of loan.
• Confirmation and disbursal of the loan.
• Selection of the dealer and reviews about its after sales service.
• Final delivery of the car.
• Taking reviews of friends/colleagues when they see my new car.

Difference between my purchase process and the process detailed in the text are:

The text provides the following steps as buying process:

Problem/need recognition>>Information search>>Evaluation of alternatives>>Purchase decision>>Post-purchase behaviour

The text provides standard that how an individual makes a purchase of different products he or she purchases but in reality individuals follow a different approach according to their needs and situation and make the purchase.

In the above example of me purchasing a car has a slightly extra step which I followed while making the purchase of a car such as enquiring about loans, test drives of different variants and models of car which is actually using the product and then deciding, it lacks in the standard buying process.

Also modern day customers go for reviews of the products before making the final purchase like I did before purchasing the car, this can be a part of information search but I consider user generated content to be different than searching of information about the products which we are going to purchase.

Every individual has different requirements and demands and the purchase process will differ from person to person and thus people on this thread will have different purchase process.

For e.g. I required loan to purchase a car, someone may buy it directly by cash and they may not require information about financial institutions or interest rates.