I was working at a client’s store, watching customers for a few hours as I do, but I wished I had been watching my car instead. It was parked just outside the store, but whilst I was figuring out what was going on in the minds of people looking at products on the shelves, some thieving so-and-so was helping themself to the wing mirror from my car. My first reaction on seeing part of my car missing was to imagine what would have happened had I seen the thief at work on my car: for a moment I saw myself running across, tapping him on the shoulder and then beating his skull on the side of my vehicle. However, this fantasy was soon interrupted by a dose of healthy pragmatism: I’m not that brave, I haven’t assaulted anyone since I was in a playground fight at the age of ten […]
Getting Published: So I’ve Written My Book
I pondered whether to use this blog on consumer behaviour to detail my book-writing journey and have decided that, since the book is (of course) about consumer behaviour and market research, it’s fair enough. And I’ll be explaining elements of psychology that crop up along the way too, so I hope it will be interesting from a number of angles. So, I’ve written my book. And writing a book is quite hard. Between making the decision that I wanted to write a book and sitting there thinking, “Bloody hell, I’ve finished” there were weeks of sitting and researching and typing and hoping and wondering. The wondering is quite preoccupying. Writing is a very solitary process and you occasionally wonder if what you’re writing is worthwhile, whether anyone would be in the least bit interested in what you’re writing about and, perhaps most worryingly, whether you’re capable of writing at all. […]
Consumer Behaviour Website Make-Over
You know how it is, you think about something for so long that it gets harder to do it not easier! Today I had a couple of hours free and decided to tackle the long overdue consumer behaviour website make-over. Of course, once I got started it took considerably longer than a couple of hours, but once you get started it only gets easier to keep going: that first step is always the longest! I’ve taken note of feedback from the blog; now articles will all appear on one page, but I’ll still link them from the front page too so that visitors to the site can get an immediate indication that there are frequent updates. I’ll also be changing the main box from time to time as new products come out. I decided that the video had had so much positive reaction – and I know it has already […]
Consumer Behaviour: Price is Not What it Seems
When it comes to understanding consumers it’s always important to consider the issues from a rational perspective, and then completely ignore what you conclude. Why? Because consumer behaviour isn’t, for the most part, rationally based. Recently I happened across a great example. The UK supermarket chain Waitrose has always operated at the higher end of the market, catering to customers who are willing to pay a little more for higher quality produce. Waitrose’s marketing makes much of the fact that they source their products carefully; some of their packaging will state which farm meat has come from for instance. With the economic downturn all of the supermarkets have been keen to communicate low price messages; which isn’t easy since most of them operated on a low price platform anyway. Indeed, the big two supermarkets (Asda who are owned by Wal Mart) and Tesco frequently squeeze suppliers brutally hard in order […]
Recent Comments