Decision Making AssignmentAli Emmott

MRK 345Course reference # 05134

Consumer BehaviorFall 2012-2013

December 10, 2012

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within this document. I certify that I have not received help fromany unauthorized persons.

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My cited sources are indicated within this document using APAcitation style. I also certify that this assignment was prepared by

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Decision Made

A recent decision that I made last Sunday was purchasing an orange sweater.

There were several different factors that lead me to making my decision. The price

of the sweater was the first factor considering I am broke college student, the price

was in my range limit. The most influential factor I believe is the relationship I have

with the store Forever21 that definitely went into purchasing the sweater. The

store happens to one of my favorite stores that I like to shop in. The color of the

sweater being one of my favorite colors and a color I don’t already own in a sweater.

The comfort and style of the sweater also were factors when deciding.

Description of Decision Making Process:

A) The decision making process I used when determining to make the purchase

were the noncompensatory decision rules. Noncompensatory decision rules do not

allow consumers to balance positive evaluations of a brand on one attribute against

a negative evaluation on some other attribute. Three noncompensatory rules are

considered briefly the conjunctive rule, the disjunctive rule and the lexicography

rule.

Conjunctive decision rule, the consumer establishes a separate, minimally

acceptable level as a cutoff point for each attribute. If or when any particular brand

or model falls below the cutoff point of any one attribute the option is eliminated

from further consideration. The conjunctive rule is particularly useful in quickly

reducing the number of alternatives to be considered. I will talk more about this rule

later on when it comes to making final decision.

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Disjunctive rule, is the “mirror image” of the conjunctive rule. In applying this

decision rule the consumer establishes a separate, minimally acceptable cutoff level

for each attribute (which may be higher than the one normally establishes for a

conjunctive rule). In this care if an option meets or exceeds the cutoff established for

any one attribute it is accepted. This decision rule may occur when the consumer

may accept the first satisfactory alternative as the final choice or apply another

decision rule that is perhaps more suitable.

Lexicographic decision rule, the consumer first ranks the attributes in terms of

perceived relevance or importance. The consumer then compares the various

alternatives in terms of the single attribute that is considered most important. If

one-option scores sufficiently high on this top ranked attribute it is selected and the

process ends.

Along with the lexicographic decision are three basic consumer orientations,

in my case I am a consumer that is economy minded because I buy the least

expensive. As a frequent shopper that makes purchases that items possess a specific

shopping strategy for saving money. The consumer segment and the specific

shipping rules that these segments employ are

1.Practical loyalists: Those who look for ways to save on the brands and

products they would buy anyway.

2.Bottom-line price shoppers: Those who buy the lowest-priced item with

little or no regard for brand.

3.Opportunistic Switchers: Those who use coupons or sales to decide among

brands and products that fall within their evoked set

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4.Deal hunters: Those who look for the best bargain and are not brand loyal.

I would consider myself to be a deal hunter shopper, because I am not brand loyal

when buying casual clothing. Being a deal hunter shopper when shopping for the

sweater I purchased I used the lexicographic decision rule. Without making note of

it I ranked the attributes of all four sweaters I was deciding between.

The factors that I used in order of importance to make the decision were,

price, material, long sleeved, sturdy, and color. I wanted to purchase a product

under twenty dollars which was most important to me, then I the product material

had to be sweater-like and warm, next the article of clothing had to have long

sleeves and finally the color had to satisfy me.

B) Heuristic(s) Used:

Heuristics refers to a framework in which satisfactory decisions are made

quickly and with simplicity. Made up of two rules Non-compensatory rule and the

compensatory rule. In my decision making process I used the non-compensatory

rules in deciding.

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Sweater 1 Sweater 2 Sweater 3 Sweater 4

Price Y Y Y NMaterial N Y Y

Long Sleeves

Y YDurable Y N

Color Y

Sweater four was eliminated first from my options because looking over my

first factor price, it ranked an ‘N’ indicating that the price was not in my range limit.

Sweater one was eliminated next when ranked with an ‘N’ for material, indicating it

was not fit the kind of material I was looking for. Followed by sweater three

elminated when ranked ‘N’ for durable, meaning that the sweater was not going to

last long or have much value. Therefore this why sweater two I choose to purchase

because it fulfilled all of my factors when listed in oeder of importance to me.

Benefit(s) of Heuristic(s) Used

I choose to use the lexicographic rule to decide because as an indecisive

shopper this rule makes it easiest for me to eliminate options and decide by which

ranks all of my desired factors. Listing the factors by importance helps eliminate

options faster as well I felt like. There are a few advantages in my situation using

this rule, the is once one of the attributes was not fit for the sweater I eliminated it

completely and could not go back and go in-between sweaters when it came time to

make my purchase. This helped me narrow down to just one sweater.

CHECKLIST (You must fill out this checklist and submit it with your paper as the last pages)

_____ As the focus of this paper I selected a decision that I recently made or am currently making.

_____ The decision made/being made is identified.

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_____ The heuristic or decision rule I used/am using is identified.

_____ A chart is included that specifically depicts the details of the decision alternatives as well as decision making process.

_____ The decision making process depicted in the chart is explained.

_____ An explanation is given about why I think I chose to use that/those decision rule(s) over the other heuristics available.

_____ The advantage(s) to using that/those particular decision rule(s) over the other possible decision rules was/were identified.

_____ I used the required subtitles (indicated in the assignment’s instructions).

_____ Paper is no longer than 2 pages, not including the cover page and the decision rule chart page(s).

Cover page included with the following information.

_____ my name

_____ the course number (MKT 345)

_____ the course reference number (05134)

_____ the course name (Consumer Behavior)

_____ the semester (Fall 2012)

_____ the assignment name

_____ the date of submission

_____ the statement of academic integrity (copied from the Communications

Guidelines document)

_____ all of the above information is located in the center of the cover

page

_____ Pages are numbered on the bottom center, excluding the cover page.

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_____ All text is double-spaced, with the exception of long quotes (that are to be single spaced and indented with no quotation marks) and charts.

_____ This paper is prepared in MS Word as either a doc or docx file.

_____ Font size is 12 point.

_____ Script style font is not used.

_____ Font color is black, with the exceptions of the cover page, exhibits, charts, graphs, pictures, and URL’s.

_____ I named the electronic file as “My Name – Decision Making Assignment”.

_____ I titled the subject in the Deliver Here area as “My Name – Decision Making Assignment”.

Select one of these two:

_____ If I used left justified paragraphs I doubled the double spacing between

paragraphs._____ I indented the first line of each new paragraph.

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