What are the major stages in the consumer buying decision process? Are all these stages used in all consumer purchase decisions? Why or why not?

The consumers' purchase decision process involves a series of steps which are as follows:

• Problem recognition: The consumer identifies the need to make a new purchase.
• Information search: He/she gathers relevant information related to the product. Search for information can be further classified into:
  1. Internal search: Use of past knowledge and experiences.
  2. External search: Search information from outside sources, such as TV, internet, websites, etc.
• Evaluation of alternatives: He/she compares various available choices on the basis of objective characteristics and subjective characteristics. The objective characteristics include size, capacity, etc and the subjective characteristics include design, color, etc.
• Purchase: It is the stage at which the consumer finally decides and makes the purchase out of available alternatives.
• Post purchase evaluation: Consumer evaluates his/her choice and measures the level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction derived from the product.

However, not all consumers necessarily go through these five stages, while making purchase decisions. Consumers may begin a process of searching for information and stop after that, deciding not to purchase. Therefore, not all intentions to necessarily result in actual purchase behavior. Additionally, consumers can make decisions based on an impulse, rather than the steps discussed, which is known as impulse buying (e.g. wheat, rice, etc).

Hence, not all decision processes translate into an actual purchase, and not all decision steps are involved in consumers' purchases.