12A- Buyer Behavior Process

Segment selection: 
The segment I selected is American college students. This ties into my service directly as my target group is college students at UF. It is very easy to find students on campus to interview who have this unmet need of textbook issues and cost of them.

Interviews: 
I interviewed three students all being at different specific colleges within UF to get a feel for the majority of students. I asked each of them the same questions and recorded their responses as shown below.

Interview 1 (Business School) - Grant Clifford, Sophomore pursuing a finance major
Q: Do you have this unmet need with textbook issues and cost of them?
-Yes
Q: When does this need come up in terms of time?
-At the beginning of the semester when syllabus week is going on.
Q: What situations create this need?
-Teachers posting chapters to read before lecture so they are prepared for the upcoming class. 
Q: Where does this need come up most often for you?
-Generally the critical tracking courses for finance, one example being financial accounting requiring a textbook. The professor encourages to read the assigned chapter before attending lecture.
Q: What is the first thing you do to find a solution to obtaining the textbooks?
-He stated he goes to the bookstore and purchases the textbooks there before classes start
Q: What other places or options do you look for when researching where you can get textbooks from?
-He stated he talks to friends in his fraternity who have taken the class to see if they have it first and if not he will go to the bookstore.

Interview 2 (School of Agricultural & Life Sciences)- McKenna Barkett, junior pursuing Nutritional science degree
Q: Do you have this unmet need with textbook issues and cost of them?
-Yes
Q: When does this need come up in terms of time?
-When she asks her parents to pay for her books each semester, she buys them with her own money and asks her parents to reimburse her.
Q: What situations create this need?
-High textbooks costs, usually around $300 a semester for her
Q: Where does this need come up most often for you?
-Every class basically, since she is nutritional science major most of her classes she learns the material from textbooks.
Q: What is the first thing you do to find a solution to obtaining the textbooks?
-She searches online to see if she can find cheaper alternatives than just buying the textbooks new.
Q: What other places or options do you look for when researching where you can get textbooks from?
- Amazon or barnes and nobles generally.

Interview 3 (College of the Arts)- Amy Dunn, Freshman with an Art History major 
Q: Do you have this unmet need with textbook issues and cost of them?
-Yes
Q: When does this need come up in terms of time?
-She just started school here in the fall so at the beginning of the semester.
Q: What situations create this need?
-Her weekly quizzes in art appreciation require reading the textbook.
Q: Where does this need come up most often for you?
-In all of her classes, she prefers to read the textbook for every class even if it is not required.
Q: What is the first thing you do to find a solution to obtaining the textbooks?
-She said she goes to the UF bookstore and purchases them there.
Q: What other places or options do you look for when researching where you can get textbooks from?
-She is not aware of any other places to get textbooks from as she has only done it once and just went to the bookstore.

Conclusion:
This segment of college students in America definitely have this need of textbook issues for price and alternative options for purchasing them. What I noticed in these interviews and throughout the course is the older the student I interview is, they seem to have it figured out in ways to get around this issue. For the younger students, they tend to just go to the bookstore as that is all they have really been exposed to. For need awareness as a whole the students were very opinionated in why this was a need for them and the issues they have with it. Information search goes back to what I stated just previously in terms of what year the student is and how much exposure they have had within college and purchasing textbooks.