Understanding Buyer Behavior

These days, practically even the tiniest of tykes is tech-savvy. And it's no wonder. There are computers in elementary schools, computer games, and, of course, there is educational software.

Kids spend a lot of time online, not just at school, but also at home, for social interaction and entertainment. According to market researcher Teen Research Unlimited, 62% of teenagers say they log on at home for 4.2 hours a week, while 46% spend 2.3 hours a week using a computer outside the home. Teens say they spend most of their online time doing research (72%), sending and reading email (63%), playing games (28%), and checking out things to buy or making purchases (23%).

Internet consultancy Cyber Dialogue Data reveals the number of teenagers going online at least once a month grew by nearly 270% between 1998 and 1999. That frequency, coupled with the fact that 19 % of these kids have a credit card in his or her own name and 9% have access to a parent's card to shop online, adds up to a huge customer base for Internet marketers.

Snowball.com is a portal that claims to serve both Gen Y and Gen X youth. It includes ChickClick.com for young women, IGN.com for young men, Power Students.com for high school and college students, and InsideGuide.com for college students. The portal has inked deals with major marketers, including Sony, Toyota, and Pillsbury. The site also has received a lot of interest from the entertainment world.

Variations in how each step is carried out in the information-processing sequence al so occur. Especially influential is the degree of elaboration. Elaborate processing, also called central processing, involves active manipulation of information. A person engaged in elaborate processing pays close attention to a message and thinks about it; he or she develops thoughts in support of or counter to the information received. In contrast, non elaborate, or peripherial, processing involves passive manipulation of information. It is demonstrated by most airline passengers while a flight attendant reads preflight safety procedures. This degree of elaboration closely parallels the low-involvement, high-involvement theory, and the same logic applies.

After information is secured and processed, alternative products, services, and outlets are identified as viable options. The consumer evaluates these alternatives, and, if financially and psychologically able, makes a choice. The criteria used in evaluation varies from consumer to consumer just as the needs and information sources vary. One consumer may consider price most important while another puts more weight upon quality or convenience.

The search for alternatives and the methods used in the search are influenced by such factors a s: (1) time and money costs; (2 ) how much information the consumer already has; (3) the amount of the perceived risk if a wrong selection is made; and (4) the consumer's predisposition toward particular choices as influenced by the attitude of the individual toward choice behavior. That is, there are individuals who find the selection process to be difficult and disturbing. For these people there is a tendency to keep the number of alternatives to a minimum, even if they haven't gone through an extensive information search to find that their alternatives appear to be the very best. On the other hand, there are individuals who feel it necessary to collect a long list of alternatives. This tendency can appreciably slow down the decision-making function.

The selection of an alternative in many cases will require additional evaluation. For example, a consumer may select a favorite brand and go to a convenient outlet to make a purchase. Upon arrival at the dealer, the consumer finds that the desired brand is out-of-stock. At this point, additional evaluation is needed to decide whether to wait until the product comes in, accept a substitute, or go to another outlet. The selection and evaluation phases of consumer problem solving are closely related and often run sequentially, with outlet selection influencing product evaluation, or product selection influencing outlet evaluation.