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.