Low and High Involvement Products Question Uploaded

Low and High Involvement Products

Question Uploaded

Products chosen

The low involvement product chosen is a sandwich which is usually bought by consumers without any real planning or previous thought before the purchase. Most of the times, the consumers simply buy it on the spot since they feel that they are hungry and they just need something to eat. The product is not necessarily bought on impulse but consumers may form a habit towards purchasing the product. The high involvement product chosen is a holiday package. The consumer takes considerable amount of time to plan and find alternatives before settling on the holiday package they want to buy. This is because it is not a routine purchase and costs a lot of money. The consumer thus needs to spend time to compare different holiday packages based on their location, number of days, price, etc.

The first step of the five stage model of the purchase decision process is problem recognition. This is where the consumer receives the trigger for the decision which can either be an internal or external stimulus. The second step is the search for information where the person scans their memory or consults with friends for previous experiences with certain products. The consumer may also search other sources such as magazines and newspapers for advertisements of the products they wish to buy. The third step is the evaluation of alternatives. Here, the consumer assesses the value of each product and tries to develop their own perception on which is more valuable. The fourth step is purchase decision where the consumer decides where they will buy the product, when and how they will pay for the product. The last step is the post-purchase behavior. Here, the person compares their expectations of the product with the actual satisfaction or dissatisfaction received. For high involvement products, the consumer goes through all steps in the model but for low involvement model, the consumer may make an impulse purchase to avoid making the choice Rao, 1969()

Differences in purchase decision processes

In the first step of the purchase process, for the sandwich which is the low-involvement product, the internal stimulus can be hunger while the external stimulus can be the aroma from a sandwich shop or stand. For the holiday package, the internal stimulus can be the purchaser's desire for a holiday while the external stimulus can be an advertisement of the holiday package. In the information search process, for the sandwich, the consumer may only consider their own previous experiences or friends' experiences with certain shops or food stands. This is often sufficient since the sandwich is a frequently purchased product. However, for the holiday package, the person would need to go a step further to search other sources such as the Internet, magazines, newspapers, etc. To find the right holiday package. In the third step of evaluating alternatives, for the high involvement product, the holiday package, the purchaser visits different tour companies in order to see the objective attributes of the packages such as hotels, flights, meals, etc. And also to see the subjective factors such as prestige. The purchaser then creates their evaluation criteria for each holiday package which they use to find the right holiday package. For the low involvement product, the evaluation criteria may be simply the objective attributes of the sandwich such as dressing, additives, etc.

For the purchase decision process, for the low involvement products, the decision is influenced by superficial attributes such as size of the sandwich, price and past experience. This is different from the purchase decision for the high involvement products whereby the purchase decision is influenced by other factors such as refund policy, terms of sale, pleasantness of the holiday destination. In the last step which is the post-purchase behavior, for the high involvement products, there is a great deal of post-purchase anxiety since the product costs a fortune to purchase and the consumer wants to be sure they made the right decision Dalal, Lee, & Sabavala, 1984.

However, for the low involvement products, the consumer will simply decide on their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the product which influences their purchase decision.

Application of model of consumer buying behavior

The implications for marketers as a result of the model of consumer buying behavior on high involvement products are different from those of low involvement products. The marketer needs to understand that for low involvement products, cognition leads to behavior which then leads to attitude. Therefore, marketing strategies should be targeted at creating awareness and beliefs regarding the brand or product. This applies for both new and existing products. At this stage, the marketer does not aim at forming or changing attitudes. He simply aims at developing cognition through the marketing strategies. The marketer is therefore trying to change the old beliefs with new ones without any change in attitude at first. After cognition is established, the marketer should target behavior change by ensuring the customer is satisfied by the product in order to encourage repeat purchases. This forms or changes the attitude of the consumers regarding the product. For high involvement products, the marketer needs to follow a sequence of cognition leading to attitude then behavior. This is because these products are not purchased repeatedly and they involve a longer planning and decision making process. Therefore, the marketer needs to create product and brand awareness. This will help the customers form or change their attitude regarding the products which then influences their behavior to purchase the product Neslin, Henderson, & Quelch, 1985()

For low involvement and high involvement products, it is essential for the marketer to identify the factors that trigger the interest of consumers on the product in order to develop marketing programs for the products. The marketer then uses this identified trigger to create an external stimulus such as an advertisement or in-store display that makes the consumer desire the product. A good example is the direction of aroma from bakeries and pastry shops to the streets outside them in order to attract customers Padberg & Westgren, 1979()

The marketer needs to know the sources of information for consumers for both high and low involvement products in order to design marketing campaigns to maximize increase in awareness and knowledge of the potential of consumers. The marketer should use low involvement media such as radio and TV for low involvement products in order to create cognition and change behavior which then changes the attitude of the consumers. For high involvement products, the marketer should use high involvement media such as print media in order to bring about a change from cognition to attitude to behavior.