How research could help retailers cash in on the laws of attraction
Retailers want to know as much as they can about why customers buy things. So the field of consumer research is thick with studies about what motivates shoppers to pull out plastic or plunk down cash.
The assumption that physically attractive salespeople are particularly effective is pervasive, according to researchers Lisa C. Wan and Robert S. Wyer Jr at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
In fact, shoppers sometimes evaluate a product more favourably when it has simply been touched by an attractive associate, according to a study in the Journal of Marketing Research.
But are there situations in which being attractive might reduce sales? Wan and Wyer wanted to know.
Previous research has shown that people are more concerned with how they will be judged by attractive people. Wan and Wyer hypothesized that if a customer is buying a product they find embarrassing — a weight-loss product for example — they are less likely to go through with the purchase if they are anxious and feel like the attractive person behind the counter might judge them poorly.
They conducted five studies, including selecting for participants with high levels of reported social anxiety and watching how people shop via one-way mirrors.
They found that while a person with average looks is not intimidating, shoppers are less likely to go through with an embarrassing purchase if the clerk is very attractive.
“When a provider is of only average attractiveness, individuals are likely to focus their attention on the product or service they are considering and are unlikely to be sensitive to the impression they create on the provider,” according to the researchers.
While attractive sales associates may be a draw when shoppers are deciding whether or not to enter a store, their appearance can, in some instances, be a drawback, the researchers concluded.
Bad romance
Does how you pay for something affect what you buy?
Does it affect how you feel about what you buy?
Yes. Generally speaking, the more transparent the form of payment, the more difficult consumers find it to part with.
Dollars are hard to part with. They collect slowly, take up room in your wallet, and as you hand them over, your wallet begins to shrink — a tactile reminder that you are parting with something you spent hours or weeks or even months working to earn.
Using a credit card cloaks the exchange, reducing it to a digital trans- fer of numbers.
Partly as a result of this, consumers using credit cards are more likely to pick up additional items when they are shopping. New research from the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University has found that paying with cash affects more than how we feel about buying a product — it also affects how we feel about owning it, and it sounds a lot like a bad romance.
Painful experiences lead, somewhat paradoxically, to increased value and commitment.
“More expensive products are more painful to purchase and to justify this pain, they are more valued by consumers,” according to the researchers.
This phenomenon extends to other social situations — participants who undergo a more painful and severe initiation to join a group express a stronger affiliation for the group than those who had a milder initiation or none at all, they point out.
The researchers undertook four studies to investigate how the psychological pain associated with different payment forms affects connection to the product purchased.
They had volunteers donate $5 cash and $5 vouchers to charity. They had them buy $10 and $20 earphones using either cash or a debit card.
They reviewed years of alumni donations, tracking those who paid by cheque and those who paid by credit cards, with cheques regarded as the more painful choice.
The results were similar across the studies. Alumni who donated using cheques were less likely to donate. But if they did donate, over time they were more likely to continue to donate.
The researchers even linked the increase in credit card spending over the past decades to a decline in brand loyalty over the same period.
These days, shoppers are more likely to switch brands to take advantage of the best deal or the newest technology, they pointed out. When everybody knows your name You may be getting more than the right cup of coffee when a barista scribbles your name on the cup — as long as he or she spells your name correctly.
Researchers know that a consumer’s desire to send a message about their personality (I’m young, I’m cool, I’m sophisticated, I’m wealthy) can influence brand choice.
But can it affect what they do with products when they’re done with them?
If there is a sentimental attachment — for example, if the product is a watch that was a gift from someone special — consumers tend to want to see that product in the hands of someone who also has an emotional attachment to the product.
But what about more transitory products — disposable ones?
Across seven studies, researchers at Boston University and the University of Alberta found that consumers who had their names written on a cup were significantly more likely to recycle the cup than throw it away.
“This occurs because placing an identity-linked product in the trash is symbolically similar to trashing a part of the self, a situation consumers are motivated to avoid,” according to the researchers.
But the name on the cup must be spelled correctly.
One of the studies included supplying some participants with cups that had their name incorrectly spelled. Of the159 who disposed of their cups as part of the study, 48 per cent of the respondents with their names spelled correctly recycled their cups while only 24 per cent of those with their names spelled incorrectly did.
Researchers also found that study participants were more likely to recycle if the drink was a brand they identified with.
The research has implications for brands and for environmental efforts, the researchers concluded. Strong branding and individual branding may increase recycling.