tagged w/ Consumer Behavior
-
I want to share a personal conundrum that you may or may not be familiar with: I feel like I am relatively knowledgeable about this issue, I’ve been involved in supporting some great research on this topic and I work for EECA, where it is basically our core business to get people and businesses to change their behaviour and use energy more wisely. However, I myself am still quite the resource waster,I want to share a personal conundrum that you may or may not be familiar with: I feel... more
-
-
Researchers have known for 80 years about a symbolic connection between speech and size: back-of-the-mouth vowels like the “o” in “two” make people think of large sizes, whereas people associate front-of-the-mouth vowels like “ee” with diminutiveness.
Marketers can use this effect to make consumers think a discount is bigger or smaller than it truly is, according to a study soon to be published in The Journal of Consumer Research by Keith Coulter of Clark University and Robin Coulter of the University of Connecticut.
In one experiment, researchers told consumers the regular and sale prices of a product, asked them to repeat the sale price to themselves, and then, a few minutes later, told them to estimate the size of the discount in percentage terms. Products with “small-sounding” sale prices (like $2.33) seemed like better deals than products with “big-sounding” sales prices (like $2.22).
In another experiment, the researchers used a pair of sale prices — $7.88, which sounds “big” in English, and $7.01, which sounds “small” — but are the other way around in Chinese. Chinese and English speakers had opposite perceptions of the products’ relative value.
(Mindlin, A., 2010, January 18, para. 1-4)
http://www.cnbc.com/id/34919366Researchers have known for 80 years about a symbolic connection between speech and... more
-
-
jmsrmy
-
added this
-
2 years ago
- |
-
A new Harris interactive survey, released today, suggests a significant number of consumers would like to receive advertising on their cell phones that they have requested, based on their location. The survey, which was commissioned by 1020 Placecast, polled more than 2,000 adults over the age of 18 years old, and found that 42 percent of those who were between 18 and 34 years old, and 33 percent of those 35 to 44 years old are at least somewhat interested in receiving opt-in alerts on their cell phones for specials at their favorite establishments.
(Berk, 2009, October 15, par.2-3)
This type of technology is even more impressive when one considers how many purchases consumers make on the fly. Even in this age of careful spending 9-in-10 Americans have made an impulse purchase when they were out shopping in a store based on a sale or a special that was going on around where they were, according to the Harris survey.
(Berk, 2009, October 15, par.8)
Among adults who own a cell phone, nearly a quarter — some 22 percent — make this type of purchase at least once per week or more often. And, if you slice the data even thinner, you will see 27 percent of the women ages 18 to 44 will make an impulse purchase once a week, however, 31 percent of men in this age group make impulse buys.
(Berk, 2009, October 15, par.9)
[more details at the link....]A new Harris interactive survey, released today, suggests a significant number of... more
-
-
jmsrmy
-
added this
-
2 years ago
- |
-
[A] sense of community is what's missing from Starbucks, a conclusion [historian and author Bryant Simon] reached after visiting about 425 of its coffee shops in nine countries. And yet millions of people patronize the outlets each day.
(AP, 2009, September 27, par.2)
"Rarely ... do these different people doing different things actually talk and exchange ideas, but talk and ideas are crucial to the making of community," he writes.
(AP, 2009, September 27, par.7)
Simon, a history professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, has spent the past few years figuring out why. His new book, "Everything but the Coffee: Learning about America from Starbucks," is meant "to be part of a public debate about what our purchases mean ... (and) how consumption shapes our lives even when we don't intend it to," Simon said.
(AP, 2009, September 27, par.3)
Seattle-based Starbucks had nearly $10.4 billion in revenue in 2008. Simon, however, argues the true cost of macchiatos and frappuccinos is much greater — that Starbucks, a private corporation, has enriched itself in part by taking advantage of Americans' impoverished civic life.
(AP, 2009, September 27, par.4)
Simon writes that while people once were able to find meaningful conversation and debate at libraries, recreation centers and parks, those public spaces have become less available — and less desirable — since municipal resources are focused elsewhere.
(AP, 2009, September 27, par.5)
"Given that we seem so reliant on Starbucks as part of the urban infrastructure and suburban infrastructure," Grazian said, "we should be interested in thinking about what it means when so much of our public sphere is taken over by a private enterprise."
(AP, 2009, September 27, par.9)
[more details at the link...][A] sense of community is what's missing from Starbucks, a conclusion [historian... more
-
-
jmsrmy
-
added this
-
2 years ago
- |
-
Meet the Piggy Shoppers, the Discount Rats and the Bloodsuckers -- all of them customers who shop at fine stores, terrorize the sales staff and now are exposed in a new book, "Retail Hell." Author Freeman Hall, after many years working in retail sales, provides an entertaining look at the view from his side of the handbag counter at a Manhattan store he dubs "The Big Fancy."
(Wulfhorst, E., 2009, September 11, par.1-2)
Among the most gruesome, the Piggy Shopper, who stampedes through store aisles "eating and drinking. Breaking and ruining. Tossing and dropping." The Discount Rat begs and lies, stopping at nothing in search of a bargain, while the Picky Bitches take their time to peruse, and reject, every single item on sale. And the Bloodsuckers, meanwhile, are so tedious that the attending sales associate "goes pale, then limp, completely bled dry, falling into a helpless heap of exhaustion in need of B-12 shots and a keg of beer," he writes.
(Wulfhorst, E., 2009, September 11, par.4-5,7)Meet the Piggy Shoppers, the Discount Rats and the Bloodsuckers -- all of them... more
-
-
jmsrmy
-
added this
-
2 years ago
- |
