About purchasing decisions

Although there are many factors which motivate consumer for buying, but most of the purchase decisions are Emotional. And we pretend that it’s rational in front of family & friends. Because we want to show our smartness. We want to prove that we are the avid buyers in the market and have knowledge about the products, brands, prices, availability, quality, effectiveness & many other things where smartness can be shown.

Quality Product + Emotions = BRAND.

Isn’t it Correct?

A valid point Prassan, while there is no harm or disrespect in pampering oneself and at times engage in emotional decisions to make purchases, one must not get trapped in egoistic fools paradise with a conviction that all the purchasing decisions were devoid of emotions and strictly based on rationality. If that the case, it could drastically increase errors in judgement while making future purchases, also. 

Dear Akshaya,

Thanks for referring this debate to me. Well I do agree that most of our purchasing decisions are emotional though a lot of time is spent for the decision to be taken under the light of rationality; but do not you feel that it is also rational to pamper our self at times by respecting emotions???

The emotional purchase decisions are related to the buying of luxury goods, cosmetics, some consumer goods which have better attraction & good appeal.Sometimes status also plays the dominant role to induce the emotional buying. There are people who will be tempted to buy the goods on sight those products, of course may be eye catching and enticing the customers to buy. But on the contrary the rational purchase decisions are related to the capital goods, or products having much more price tag. Here people are thinking whether money to be spent will have any value and also thinking on the usage and application of products, life of products, durability, depreciation value, resale value etc., These factors call for rational decisions.

Akshaya I agree with you totally on on your view point on the subject.

Purchasing decisions are expected to be taken in a rational manner. But most of the time, the puchasing decisions when analyzed deeply indicate that it was tilted more toward an emotional decision.

Malcolm Gladwell has highlighted how decisions are made in the blink of an eye, before consumers even realize they’re making a decision. He suggests “we think without thinking.” 

Gladwell urges that people make decisions through rapid cognition and a concept known as thin-slicing—the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience. More than we realize, we evaluate a situation or a brand and frame our response before we ever consciously think about it. When we thin-slice, we recognize patterns and make snap judgments, we do this process of editing unconsciously.

However, this concept is more applicable for retail purchases as compared to large volume massive purchases where rational decisions and other political factors are a greater influence than only the emotional factors. Additionally, when a committee is involved in purchasing, then the collective emotional thinking influences all the members on the committee. However, the probability of a rational decision is higher when purchasing is done for large volume/high cost purchases.

Thanks for the referral, Akshaya....