1. It is important for marketers to understand the consumer buying process for their good, because to do so will put the marketer in a better position to influence the decision at key inflection points, and to remove barriers to purchase. Some purchases are low involvement, and gas is one of them (Radder, 2008). The product is a commodity, and I cannot genuinely differentiate between gasolines. Thus, price and convenience are the two most important variables in determining where I purchase gas. Price only matters if gas prices are high, or if I’m feeling broke. Convenience is the most important to me, because I dislike going out of the way for gas. I know that as the tank gets low, I establish my need, but that I have a fairly long window with which to address the situation, and my need for optimizing convenience will be met. A new home entertainment system is a high involvement purchase. It costs a lot of money, and I make this purchase very seldom. A really good system can last years, and that would be my underlying logic. One could definitely take the approach of buying cheaper electronics, and replacing them more frequently, but a home entertainment system will still be an infrequent and expensive purchase, relative to most purchases. I would have a fairly high stake in the purchase since I will be interacting with the home entertainment system almost every day, and the quality of the system will affect the quality of those interactions. So this buying process will likely involve a lot more research, and it will involve a longer time frame. This decision could take a while, because I would want to get it right.

There are not that many similarities between the purchases. The level of product differentiation, the cost, the frequency of purchase and the stake that I have are all different, and that means these two things have very different buying processes. I am struggling to think of what similarities there might be between the two. There are exceptions – people who know a lot about gasoline, or people who have so much money they just spend on the most...

The B2C market for laptops is very different than the B2B market. The B2B market is characterized by accounts (Linton, 2018). You build relationships with the buyers for companies, and the IT people who influence the buying decision. The sale will typically be multiple units initially, with new units ordered incrementally as new people join the customers’ companies. The B2B buying process is quite long, and there are several reasons for this (Cohn, 2018). First, most companies have a complex system of approvals – for Lenovo this would be purchasing, accounting/finance and IT at the very least.
But purchasing laptops for a company is also something that pertains to the entire ecosystem in which the laptop will operate. Each company has its own software stack with which it works, and the choice of laptop will be reflected in what tech is needed. Some companies need a fairly minimal stack, and can maybe use weaker laptops. Other companies might have demand for powerful computers. Road warriors within a company might need sturdier computers. There is also the dynamic of whether a company has such a range, and to what extent it can meet the demands of its customers for a wide range of products. This high degree of customization is one of the reasons why B2B buying relationship-driven, and the buying process can be very long and complex.

The B2C market is entirely different. Consumers have relatively simple needs, and relatively short buying processes. Consumer reviews online matter, as does advertising to consumers. So the way that the consumer market is reached is quite different. The B2B market takes deliveries direct; consumers will often go through intermediaries. With shorter time cycles, less opportunity for upselling, less concerned about ecosystems, consumers have much simpler needs, a shorter buying cycle and they are relatively easy…