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Podcast Episode #70 Consumerology: How Customers Make Purchase Decisions
Consumers don’t make buying decisions the way we think they do. In fact, consumers don’t make decisions they way they think they do. The culprit is the subconscious mind. While customers think and rationalize with their conscious mind, at the point of purchase it’s the subconscious that often takes over to make the decision. What’s a business to do?
In this episode of Power to the Small Business, consumer behavior consultant Philip Graves joins host Jay Ehret to discuss the psychology of shopping and how consumers make purchase decisions. Graves is author of the book: Consumerology: The Market Research Myth, the Truth About Consumers, and the Psychology of Shopping. Graves and Ehret discuss the role of the conscious and subconscious mind in making purchase decisions. Take a listen and gain insights into how you can help the customer make a decision to buy from your business.
Guest: Philip Graves – Author and Consumer Behavior Consultant, Cambridge, England
Host: Jay Ehret – The Marketing Spot, Waco, Texas
Length: 27 minutes
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SELECTED QUOTES FROM PHILIP GRAVES
On how customers evaluate their purchase decisions:
“We ourselves are not always aware of the mental processes that we have been through, that have resulted in us taking a particular action….Consumers end up not being very good witnesses to their own behavior.”
On customers not making a decision:
“When people have more choice, and when they’re aware that there’s more choice, they tend to feel less good about what they’ve chosen.”
“They’ll justify that to themselves as ‘Oh, I didn’t want to buy it today, or I couldn’t really get the one I wanted.’ But the reality is that you just haven’t given them an environment in which they feel they can make a choice.”
On helping consumers make a purchase decision:
“Stop thinking about them as conscious, rational creatures, and start to understand those unconscious mechanisms that are driving a large proportion of what they do.”
On consumer research:
“When you go to ask questions, whilst it’s a well-intentioned exercise, the part of the brain that people are responding with is not the part, very often, that is making the decisions on which purchases are made.”
Links:
Philip Graves Website
Buy the Book: Consumerology
The Marketing Spot Website