Path to Purchase – High Involvement Purchase and Decision Analysis

Assess your path to purchase on a high-involvement purchase and analyze your decision.

This assignment has two parts.

PART 1

Pick a recent high-involvement purchase that you made within the last year. Some examples are a television, a new car, holiday travel, or even a home rental or purchase.

Assess your path to purchase in making your decision. What specific touchpoints (websites, apps, retail, e-commerce, friends, experts, social media, business call centers) did you interact with while researching and making your decision? 

In a diagram, map out these different touchpoints. You can organize your map using one of the two choices below:

• By psychological stages of the marketing or purchase funnel. What did you use during awareness, consideration, preference, action, loyalty, and maybe advocacy
• By chronological stages. Which touchpoints did you use at the following stages – first impressions, research, decision to purchase, purchase, usage, and post-usage.

Part 1 Answer

My answer is regarding my recent car purchase. I overcome my first stage without much hesitation to buy a Sports Utility Vehicle(SUV).  In the next stages, the brands I considered are Ford, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, Acura and Honda out of which Lexus, Acura and Mercedes-Benz are luxury brands. Please find the potential options I had at the left side of the below funnel and the options I used at the right side of the funnel in the Figure 1. The purchase decision was a family decision and as a collective effort, we researched almost every social media forum like Facebook, YouTube, blogs, review sites, dealer sites, and also asked many of my friends and relatives.

Diagram:  Psychological stages of the purchase funnel

Diagram:  Chronological stages – Touch Points to purchase

Below diagram shows the touch points I used in a chronological order. I predominantly used brand websites and brochures, expert reviews posted in YouTube and car magazines, customer review comments on product, email and face book posts.

PART 2 Answer

1. What was your final decision? What brand or company or travel destination did you settle on?

Finally, I bought an Acura MDX SUV. Acura is a luxury brand in US from Honda. I eliminated other brands and models from awareness, consideration, preference and action touch points.

• Which touchpoints or interactions were most influential in making that decision?

The most influential decision-making touch points were online commercials, Test drive and customer reviews/feedbacks.  Acura brand is from Honda which is known for reliability, resale value and quality which I came to know from different blog sites, my friends and Kelly Blue book site. My friends also told me that the car is positioned as a youth car which I felt great

• Which touchpoints could have offered you a better experience from the companies you considered?

Product offers though email or direct marketing, video brochures from the brand or dealer, recommendations from existing customers and interact with me through social media pages like Facebook could have offered me better experience. I have considered to buy Honda Pilot and Lexus RX during “preference” stage. The customer experience from Honda dealer was not great and they didn’t have a white color car in pipeline which was a main requirement for me. Lexus RX model is same as Toyota Harrier in Japan which is not a luxury car in Japan. The commercials or forums or brochures are not providing sufficient justification on why Lexus RX is superior from Harrier.  So, I omitted Lexus RX during consideration phase and Honda pilot during purchase phase.

• Did you (would you) advocate for the brand you ultimately chose? Give reasons to justify your response. For example, did you share or talk about it on any digital media platform? If so, how did you share your own experience and your decision with others in a way that might potentially influence them?

I advocate for the Acura MDX SUV I purchased. I travel every week and use various rental cars from different brands. I never satisfied any other car as Acura MDX. My car has excellent fuel efficiency, very smooth, 7 seater which is rare in this segment, and excellent sound system supported by Honda quality. I recommend to my friends to buy an Acura when they are in consideration phase and give a good feedback to other brand users in various occasions. I know that there are various forums I used is available to share my feedback, but I am not a big user of social media due to official reasons. Hence, I never posted a review or comments I any social media forums.