Post purchase reassurance. Not a thing many people have ever really heard of. But it does exist.
The buying process is a complicated thing, more complicated that you’d ever realise. Not because the steps to actually owning something are “complicated” rather that people rarely stop to think what these processes actually are. Indeed we’ve become so used to the process it simply doesn’t register. The “want” the “need” the “justification” and then the “purchase” are all so well ingrained in us that it seems automatic, a reflex action.
Of course it isn’t. It’s wrong to overstate that people are manipulated into buying products, but it is equally wrong to suggest that it is something free from external factors and pressures. Of course we are aware of advertising, but in the main people claim to be “unaffected” by it’s teasing, tantalising and temptations.
Which, is of course, utter rot.
You buy something because there is a need. The need may be that you have to eat, or the need may be that you want a games console. One is biological one is entirely mental.
Of course what advertising doesn’t really deal with is what happens once you’ve bought the thing. You’ve swallowed the bumpf and that shiny new consumer durable is now proudly residing in your front room. Now what?
That’s were “post purchase reassurance” raises it’s head. Put simply it’s that thought, “have I bought the right thing?” Now this manifests itself in a variety of ways. Perhaps the most obvious and depressingly common is something I’d refer to as “mine’s better than yours”. Even a casual browse of the internet will see how much of cyberspace is devoted to sites which can be boiled down to this simple phrase.
It’s part of human nature for people to seek out others with common interests and is nothing new. However I wonder if people whose common interest is a slickly marketed consumer durable realise just how odd a phenomena it is? More so how downright peculiar it is attacking others who’ve chosen a different consumer durable. This isn’t corporate evangelism; it’s a corporate inquisition. I know I’ve touched on this before but as religion declines I wonder if it is being replaced with a doctrine of loyalty to corporations? Again people deny this, “no” they state solemnly “I can see through the corporate hype, mine is definitely better than yours”. And of course it is.
Now you may think that doesn’t happen, people aren’t that stupid. But they are. Just to prove it I conducted a little experiment on a forum I occasionally post on just to see what would happen. Now this wasn’t a particularly scientific experiment but the response was interesting. I offered an alternative to the received wisdom. It didn’t take much. I was wrong. No explanation was given, I was simply wrong. Theirs “was better” all backed-up with evidence from other “mines better than yours” websites. The reaction to daring to suggest they’ve made the wrong choice gets to the core of “post purchase reassurance”.
Perhaps before the internet you just dealt with it. I’ve bought it, I’ve got to live with it.. But I can’t really believe that’s true. The myriad magazines that predate the internet demonstrate that this as long been a feature of what has become know as consumerism. “I’ve bought the right thing because a magazine dedicated to the product tells me so”.
However the internet has merely provided a new vehicle for people to ask for, and receive validation, from others who’ve looked for and received the validation. And as this is what you are specifically looking for, this is what you’ll specifically find. But the whole thing of defining yourself by the consumer durables you have and the validation you think you get from get from strangers because you own it is a thoroughly depressing thought.
I wonder what it says?
Nothing good.
The buying process is a complicated thing, more complicated that you’d ever realise. Not because the steps to actually owning something are “complicated” rather that people rarely stop to think what these processes actually are. Indeed we’ve become so used to the process it simply doesn’t register. The “want” the “need” the “justification” and then the “purchase” are all so well ingrained in us that it seems automatic, a reflex action.
Of course it isn’t. It’s wrong to overstate that people are manipulated into buying products, but it is equally wrong to suggest that it is something free from external factors and pressures. Of course we are aware of advertising, but in the main people claim to be “unaffected” by it’s teasing, tantalising and temptations.
Which, is of course, utter rot.
You buy something because there is a need. The need may be that you have to eat, or the need may be that you want a games console. One is biological one is entirely mental.
Of course what advertising doesn’t really deal with is what happens once you’ve bought the thing. You’ve swallowed the bumpf and that shiny new consumer durable is now proudly residing in your front room. Now what?
That’s were “post purchase reassurance” raises it’s head. Put simply it’s that thought, “have I bought the right thing?” Now this manifests itself in a variety of ways. Perhaps the most obvious and depressingly common is something I’d refer to as “mine’s better than yours”. Even a casual browse of the internet will see how much of cyberspace is devoted to sites which can be boiled down to this simple phrase.
It’s part of human nature for people to seek out others with common interests and is nothing new. However I wonder if people whose common interest is a slickly marketed consumer durable realise just how odd a phenomena it is? More so how downright peculiar it is attacking others who’ve chosen a different consumer durable. This isn’t corporate evangelism; it’s a corporate inquisition. I know I’ve touched on this before but as religion declines I wonder if it is being replaced with a doctrine of loyalty to corporations? Again people deny this, “no” they state solemnly “I can see through the corporate hype, mine is definitely better than yours”. And of course it is.
Now you may think that doesn’t happen, people aren’t that stupid. But they are. Just to prove it I conducted a little experiment on a forum I occasionally post on just to see what would happen. Now this wasn’t a particularly scientific experiment but the response was interesting. I offered an alternative to the received wisdom. It didn’t take much. I was wrong. No explanation was given, I was simply wrong. Theirs “was better” all backed-up with evidence from other “mines better than yours” websites. The reaction to daring to suggest they’ve made the wrong choice gets to the core of “post purchase reassurance”.
Perhaps before the internet you just dealt with it. I’ve bought it, I’ve got to live with it.. But I can’t really believe that’s true. The myriad magazines that predate the internet demonstrate that this as long been a feature of what has become know as consumerism. “I’ve bought the right thing because a magazine dedicated to the product tells me so”.
However the internet has merely provided a new vehicle for people to ask for, and receive validation, from others who’ve looked for and received the validation. And as this is what you are specifically looking for, this is what you’ll specifically find. But the whole thing of defining yourself by the consumer durables you have and the validation you think you get from get from strangers because you own it is a thoroughly depressing thought.
I wonder what it says?
Nothing good.
But none of this matters. You might as well be arguing with a Canary about Schoenberg’s theories on serialism. “Their” one is always going to better than “my” one. In the same way that “my” one is better than “theirs”
