Status: Online

Being part of a generation which believes that a picture validates the actual action, ‘viral’ doesn’t mean flu, ‘FOMO’ (fear of missing out) is so rampant. We spend most of our time online creating deep digital footprints. We work, socialise, shop, read, pay bills online amongst many other activities.

Even before we open our eyes, we reach out to our phones and are immediately flooded with information, messages and advertisements. Being almost neck deep in the online culture we have all developed certain qualities, behaviour traits as online users, consumers or shoppers. Most of us tend to exhibit more than a single behaviour trait depending o the situation.

I consume a lot of content both articles and videos on DIY, arts and crafts, food, and Anime on various online platforms like Youtube, Instagram and blogs. I keep adding cooking, DIY videos to my playlist and bookmark articles and anime names in the hopes of creating the craft or the dish and watching the show. Although, I try to tick them off my list, the list keeps piling up. I tend to add and delete books and comics especially the complete sets to my shopping cart on online shopping portals  and wish to be able to own  all the books, comics and watch all the shows on my mental list.

As a person who is not inclined towards shopping online or offline, I tend to be a rational customer. I decide exactly what I want to buy, which brand and from which online shopping website.  For example if I need to buy a watch, I only look at fastrack watches on Amazon or Flipkart. I pick the design and buy it immediately.  I don’t dwell much on buying the products or brands that I have chosen as I am not a frequent shopper or a window shopper.  

Every single day I use multiple apps like Whatsapp, Instagram, Google maps, Inshorts news app among others. I become extremely cautious or hesitant when it comes to financial apps whether to pay bills or transfer money. I don’t like to use third party financial apps or wallets like Paytm, Tez or similar apps. I tend to stick to the actual bank apps for any kind of financial transaction. I fear that the transaction could go wrong or I may not get a refund. I have had past experiences, when it was difficult to get a refund for an unsuccessful transaction and that influences my hesitation.

 As a consumer of content, I am more open to read or watch something that I haven’t in the past as long as it falls in the realm of my interest.  But, as a customer, I make decisions even before opening a shopping portal and rarely digress from the original plan. I am more rigid as a user as I spoke earlier about financial apps. I tend to continue the rigid behaviour even for a lot of social networking and communication apps like Snapchat or Truecaller, probably due to all the news about data leak.

To Buy or Not To Buy

Our buying behaviour is often dependent on emotions and rationality but most of the times we decide to not buy something based on emotions. Hence, it becomes very important to have an emotional connect with a brand and not let it be merely transactional. As humans, we are quite irrational and that is apparent in our purchases as well.

While, our emotional side often outweighs our rational side when it comes to buying a product or opting for a service, the same applies for not buying as well. The reason can be as simple as, not finding a particular brand’s packaging appealing to not being able trust the brand entirely.

As buyers we exhibit certain behavioural traits time and again namely, complaining, overly agreeable, being an expert, or being a pessimist and finally stall buying. Depending on the situations, all of us exhibit one or more of this behaviours.

The complainer: Having been a user of Vodafone service for many years, I have experienced the good, bad and the ugly service. Having a bad internet connection at important situations is never a happy situation and has led me to disappointment plenty times. I have complained about to my friends and family and even to the customer care office but, irrelevant of how many times I complain, I would never move to another service provider. I have a sense of trust and belonging with Vodafone and that would be extremely difficult to replace.   

The overly agreeable: As a stationary, arts and crafts fan, there are a few brands that I have come to favour over the years. Camlin is one such brand; I would buy a Camlin product without a second thought at any given point. Whether its pencils, poster colours, water colours, acrylic paints or anything else I would chose Camlin over other brands in spite of differences in price, availability or quality.  

The expert: Being a tea enthusiast, I love to try out different flavours and brands of tea whenever I get a chance to. Due to this, I tend to be choosy of the brands that I use and pay attention to every detail of the brand like the colour, texture, fragrance of the tea. I look at minute details as well like the length of the thread of the tea bag or the leaf to dust ratio. My choosiness is not limited to just the brands; it spreads to particular flavours offered by a brand. For examples, when it comes to the brand Red Label, I only consume the Natural Care tea. When it comes to the brand Twinings, I only consume Earl Grey tea.

The pessimist: The thought of going to Landmark, Bookworm or Blossoms creates a mix of emotions within me. The happiness of being in a book store soon paves for a way of sadness or pessimism due to the lack of vitamin M or money. When I walk through the aisles of books, comics, stationeries, and toys I often end up being sad or unhappy. This impacts my overall approach towards Landmark. I feel the same way towards Hamelys as well, as I know I cannot buy a lot of things at Hamelys.

The staller: I use a Dell laptop and for the past few days, my laptop has been showing the ‘change your battery’ sign. I know that it has to be done on priority but, I end up stalling it in spite of this.  The reason for this could be, I know that, my laptop is not going to stop working all of a sudden. We tend to do this even for system updates as that’s not our priority or doesn’t need our immediate attention.

Trying to map our reasons to buy or the factors that influence our purchase behaviour is fascinating. It gives us a chance to consciously look at our choices, decisions and why we behave in a certain way depending on the situation.