Information search

The second stage in the buyer decision-making process will begin when problem recognition is sufficiently strong. In the case of an organizational buying decision, the DMU will draw up a description of what is required and then begin a search for potential alternatives. When marketers can influence the specification that is drawn up, it may give their company an advantage at later stages in the buying process.

In a consumer situation, the search may be internal or external. Internal search involves a review of relevant information from memory. This review would include potential solutions, methods of comparing solutions, reference to personal experiences and marketing communications. If a satisfactory solution is not found then an external search begins. This involves personal sources such as friends, family, work colleagues and neighbours, and commercial sources such as advertisements and salespeople. Third-party reports such as Which? reports, and product testing reports in newspapers and magazines may provide unbiased information, and personal experiences may be sought such as asking for demonstrations and viewing, touching or tasting the product.

The objective of information search is to build up the awareness set, that is the array of brands that may provide a solution to the problem. This phase of the buying decision process has been significantly enhanced by the Internet. There has been a significant growth in intelligent agents: websites that allow buyers to find out information about products and compare alternative vendors (see e-Marketing 3.1).

3.1 e-Marketing

Web Shopping Made Easy- Price Comparison Websites

With thousands of websites selling products, and new sites opening all the time, shoppers have a tremendous range of choices. But for any one category such as books, music or consumer electronics, most people can only name a handful of sites. How then is it possible for shoppers to unearth bargains and special deals? Well, it is possible to make the Internet do the work for you by using one of the many price comparison websites. These are also sometimes called 'shopping bots' because they use intelligent agents, or robots, to do the shopping for you. One of the best known of these sites is www.mysimon.com which is a wholly owned subsidiary of CNET Networks. It is a free site that scans products and prices in 2000 online stores using its Virtual Learning Agent software. By following the menu of options on the screen, shoppers can ask for products specific to their needs such as, say, wristwatches between £50 and £100. Search results will list products, prices, manufacturers and merchants, as well as ratings of merchants from www.gomez.com. If you want to purchase a product you click on the 'Buy' button and then you are actually buying it directly from the merchant as mysimon.com doesn't ship or sell anything itself. With all price comparison websites, it is important to find out whether or not manufacturers and merchants pay to be listed as this may limit your choices. Some sites are supported by advertising whereby advertised products appear with a larger icon on the search results page. At present there is a variety of sites on the Internet. The biggest ones, such as mysimon.com, priceSCAN.com, Shopper.com and behelpful.net, are general sites covering many product areas. Specialist sites, such as bestbookbuys.com and killerapp.com, are dedicated to shoppers searching for books and consumer electronics respectively.