Buổi 67: Reading – Matching features + Y/N/NG: chúng ta mua vì điều gì?

Why do we buy?

(Bài đọc tự viết; các chuyên gia và nghiên cứu là giả định.)

A Most of us like to think that we buy things because we need them, or because, after careful thought, we have decided that they are worth the money. Experts on consumer behaviour tend to be less flattering. Over the past few decades, several competing explanations have emerged for why people buy as much as they do, and why they so often regret it.

B The economist Clara Mendes argues that much consumption is driven by social comparison. In her view, people judge whether they have “enough” not against an absolute standard but against what those around them have. A car that seemed perfectly adequate becomes unsatisfactory once neighbours buy newer models. Mendes points out that this makes rising incomes a poor guide to satisfaction: if everyone’s possessions improve together, nobody feels better off.

C The psychologist Daniel Ortiz focuses instead on the emotional moment of purchase. He suggests that buying something new provides a brief sense of pleasure and control, which is why people often shop when they are stressed or bored. The pleasure fades quickly, however, and so the cycle repeats. Ortiz is careful to stress that this does not apply to all purchases; it describes a pattern that becomes problematic only when it replaces other ways of coping.

D A third view, associated with the design researcher Priya Nair, shifts attention from consumers to products. Nair argues that many goods are designed in ways that shorten their useful life – batteries that cannot be replaced, parts that are glued rather than screwed together, software updates that slow older devices. People buy more, she suggests, not only because they want to but because the things they own stop working or become impractical sooner than they need to. She acknowledges, though, that consumers also play a part, since many people replace items that still work perfectly well.

E Finally, the marketing historian James Okafor points out that advertising has changed less in its goals than in its methods. Early advertisements, he notes, mostly described what a product did. Over time, they increasingly promised what a product would make you: more attractive, more successful, more admired. Okafor believes that today’s personalised online advertising is simply the latest stage of this trend, although he concedes that it is far more precise than anything that came before.

F Which of these explanations is most convincing? I find it hard to choose between them, because they seem to describe different parts of the same system. Social comparison, as Mendes describes it, explains why people want more; Ortiz explains why the act of buying is so tempting; Nair explains why products are replaced so often. Of the four, I am least persuaded by Okafor’s suggestion that nothing fundamental has changed. The ability to show an individual a carefully chosen advertisement at the exact moment they are most likely to respond seems to me to be a genuinely new development, not merely a refinement.

G What, if anything, can consumers do? One practical approach is to think in terms of “cost per use” rather than price. A cheap pair of shoes that falls apart in three months may be more expensive, per wear, than a more durable pair that lasts for years. Buying second-hand, repairing rather than replacing, and waiting a few days before any non-essential purchase can all reduce impulse buying. None of these strategies will change the wider system, but they may help individuals buy fewer things they later regret.