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External Search At Cole's Grocery Store

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Our situations start out with problem recognition. Problem recognition is the perceived difference between an actual and ideal state. In this case, it is a necessity to buy groceries. No one wants to spend their money, but you have to eat to stay alive. The ideal state is the way consumers want things to be. At Coles, Australians ideal state would be that every item on their grocery list would be at Coles, and would be on a discount. In reality, the actual state or the way things really are, is that consumers will have to make another brand work when they can’t find exactly what they want, and that nothing is on sale. After consumers recognize that there is a problem, then they go into an external search or internal search. External search …show more content…

Going through these searches help consumers make their decisions. In this case, it would help Australian consumers make decisions on what to buy at Coles. As listed above, information search is where consumers search for external or internal data that will help them make a selection. For Coles grocery store, that is consumers decide what to buy based on what they know from their memory or outside sources. Recalling of brands, attributes, evaluations, and experiences can be a big factor in how quickly consumers can make decisions. Recall is the ability to retrieve information about a stimulus from memory without being reexposed to the stimulus again. For example, if consumers recall information, they would remember what products they would prefer over others. When it comes to grocery shopping, if a consumer recalls information that they had a good experience with the Coles brand of white toast bread for $1, then the consumer would not choose the more expensive brand of Tip Top white sandwich bread for $3. Same goes with the other way around, if consumers had a better experience with the $3 loaf of bread and can recall that information, than next time they were …show more content…

This is where our mind will compare the alternatives. In Coles, this could be deciding between two peanut butter brands in Australia, for example, a popular brand Bega for $6.27 or the off brand Coles version for $3.50. Consumers looking for peanut butter in Coles would have to evaluate their options and make a selection depending on if the higher price is worth it. For consumers in this situation, their selection could become quicker if they know the brand image and trust it. Brand image is where a specific type of schema captures what a brand stands for and how favorably it is viewed. So, if a consumer knew the brand image of the Bega brand of peanut butter and they favored the brand, they would most likely pick that brand over the Coles peanut butter. This is because they already know they like and trust the Bega brand. On the other hand, price could play a big role in whether they pick one brand over the other. Even if a consumer knows and trusts a certain brand, they could go for the cheaper option just to be able to save money. Anchoring and adjustment which is, starting with an initial evaluation and adjusting it with additional information, can also play a role in consumer decisions. For example, if consumers believe the Bega peanut butter brand is better they can anchor and adjust that belief to become better or worse. To better the belief, they would use confirmation bias to confirm their

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