Question

As Markel drives buy a local restaurant, he realizes that he hasn’t eaten all day and is famished. He stops at the restaurant, and without referring to the menu, orders a burger because that’s what he typically buys at this particular restaurant. This scenario suggests that:
1. low-involvement decisions may sometimes enable consumers to skip steps in the consumer decision making process.
2. Markel would have probably made a different food choice had he not been famished.
3. some people may skip steps in the consumer decision making process, particularly for high-involvement decisions.
4. all purchase decisions go through the six steps of the consumer decision making process.
5. Markel’s hunger caused him to experience cognitive dissonance.

Answer 1

Answer:

1. low- involvement decisions may sometimes enable consumers to skip steps in the consumer decision making process.

Explanation:

Consumer decision making process includes all the steps between consumer's generation of needs/wants and final purchase of the product.

The process comprises of below mentioned 5 stages:

1. Need recognition : whereby a need is generated
2. Search for information so as to identify products satisfying such needs
3. Evaluation of all available alternatives i.e assessment of all available products satisfying a need and selecting the best alternative.
4. Purchases , the stage wherein the consumer buys the selected product.
5. Post purchase evaluation, i.e the stage when consumer evaluates whether he made the right purchase decision.

In the given case, the consumer realized that he hadn't eaten at all during the day and thus instantly stopped at a restaurant, made a regular purchase of a burger without caring for the menu or set of other available alternatives.

Here, the investment decision related to a meal, being a low cost decision and occurring in a famished state. So consumers while making such low cost decisions may not find going through the menu and spending much time in deciding as worthwhile and in short will likely skip steps in the consumer decision making process.