The marketer must understand how consumers make their buying decisions. In some cases it is very difficult to find out who the buyer is and who the user is. There are different roles played by the consumer. So to understand properly consumer buying decision process it is necessary to understand the different roles played by them. They are:

i) INITIATOR:  initiator is the person who brings the idea to buy a product for eg. Son brings the idea to buy a computer.

ii)INFLUENCER: influencer is the person with whom influence person wish tobuy anyproduct. For eg, Son’s friend influences him to buy a computer.

iii)GATEKEEPER: it is the person inside the house who informs that there is no budget to buy it. For example, in this case father says there is no budget to buy the cycle.

iv) DECIDER: it is the person who decides to buy the product like mother decides to buy the computer for her son.

v) BUYER:  now the family member go to the market and buy the product. Like in this case mother and father go to the shop to buy a computer.

vi) USER:  at the end the family uses the computer.

Therefore all these are the different roles played by the consumer in buying decision process.