Before purchasing a car, John sought advice from his friends and researched auto reviews on the Internet. He also visited car dealers and went for a test-drive. In which of the following stages of the consumer decision-making process is John engaged?

a. internal information search
b. external information search
c. postpurchase evaluation
d. problem recognition
e. evoked set manipulation

b. external information search

Explanation: As majority of us are not experts on everything, in the external information search stage if the consumer decision-making process, one researches for products and services that can satisfy our needs and wants. This is the beginning of risk management where we access pros and cons while taking into account past experiences we have had.

External information search occurs when the buyer has no previous knowledge about a product, which then leads them to seek information from personal or public sources or marketer dominated sources especially when the buyer's previous experience is limited inefficient. During the information search, the options available to the buyer are either identified or clarified.

being born in poverty would limit the people's chances, opportunities and benefits.

this happen because of several things, such as:

- poor people tend to gain less access to good education and nutrition. this mean that their chance to obtain high paying jobs would also be limited.

- poor people tend to socialize with other poor people while the rich tend to socialize with other rich people. this means that simply throguh their social circle, rich people would have more business opportunities compared to the poor people.

- rich people tend to have more capital in their disposal. this would benefit them in business since it is far easier for them to fund their business operation compared to poor people.

i would say their habit of breaking down.