SRMC Ltd
Waverley House
Hinton Way
Cambridge
CB22 5AZ
United Kingdom
07970 480113
+447970 480113
Page 2
I know from my own research that customers perceive products that are in neat, orderly environments as better. It’s not just that they think the shop is a nicer place to be, they believe that the products are higher quality and that the service will be better.
This isn’t irrational. It’s simply an example of the unconscious mind making positive associations with a well-ordered and well-cared-for environment.
It feels safe in much the same way a tidy cave would be an indication to our caveman ancestors that a bear or wolf wasn’t about to return from a weekend away and eat you for borrowing his house.
Recently researchers have quantified the extent to which retail is detail, at least with regard to the information customers have available when considering a purchase.
In a number of experiments they asked people to make choices between different health clubs, wireless service providers and laptop computers, and varied the information that was available. In some cases participants had information on three variables known to be important (such as speed, battery life and memory for laptops); in others one of these was left blank.
When the information was complete just 4% of people chose the “no choice” option.
When there was information missing a staggering 31% opted not to choose: loss aversion being what it is, many people would prefer to make no choice than worry that the one they’ve chosen might turn out to be a bad one, even when they know it’s just an experiment (although they don’t know what the focus of that experiment is).
So it seems the cliché is well founded: retail is detail. When it comes to product information it is worth making sure that customers have access to key information for each product.
Often the temptation, particularly with new products, is to put them out for sale before all the specification is available, but this approach may well back-fire. Rather than giving customers the chance to buy the latest thing you may well cause them to walk away.
Similarly, when one product makes a point of highlighting a standard feature that isn’t referenced on competing products, rather than differentiate it, it may simply cause customers to walk away because the machine they are drawn towards doesn’t say whether it has this feature or not.
Source: Kunter Gunasti and William T. Ross, Jr. How Inferences about Missing Attributes Decrease the Tendency to Defer Choice and Increase Purchase Probability. Journal of Consumer Research, February 2009
Page: 1 ¦ 2
© 2009 Philip Graves Consumer Behaviour Research Resource. All rights reserved.
