Personal Purchasing Patterns And Things I Look For
I struggle with Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping. It puts an extra layer of stress on my already chaotic life. The need to buy presents suitable for the occasion, the recipient, the budget, and the perceived value is utterly inefficient. If I had it my way, the entire practice of gift-giving will be disrupted by some radical new school of thought. Anyone know of a random AI powered gift generator??
Even buying things for myself is chaotic. I’m overly critical. I obsess over details that wouldn’t matter to most people. I demand a great experience from the first 10–30 seconds of interacting with a product. Do I worry about the cost? Sure. But more importantly, I need to be satisfied and knocked off my feet by at least one criteria.
So what am I really looking for when buying something? What indicators or markers am I looking for? And do these patterns apply only to me? Maybe? I know I’m a price conscious shopper yet I have no problems paying $3,000 for a DSLR that I no longer use. So maybe I’m a value conscious shopper? $3,000 for a top of the line camera is a great value but that still doesn’t justify the purchase if I’m no longer using it.
Here are the things I weigh when shopping for anything.
Price
I’m listing price first but it should probably be last. Price is not an issue if the product or service is good. I’m happy to pay 2x the price for a good experience. However, the price of a good establishes my first expectation of the product. Without prior experiences, there’s a price point in my mind for the category of the product/service I’m shopping. Beyond that point, I don’t even consider it no matter how good it is. This price point fluctuates as I do more research of competitor products.
Aesthetics & Polish
It shows when businesses invest in the design and polish of their products. Contrary to what most people believe, aesthetics and polish has nothing to do with the actual quality of the product (that’s next). It has everything to do with trust. When I’m shopping and the product I’m looking at is a stock photo, or if the image is blurry, or if there are broken links/icons, or if the product itself looks like it came straight from a sweat shop, I’m not going to invest more time looking at it because I know you didn’t care.
Communicating on Quality
I will never buy new products or services without reading reviews first. Having a good set of honest and unsolicited reviews is crucial. If a company prioritizes quality-based reviews first, nice. How’s the warranty? What’s the return policy? Is it easy to find? Etc. It’s important that quality-oriented information is prioritized to the top because companies that are transparent usually stand by their product. A good knowledge seems to help in these cases.
Brand & Experience
I prefer to buy from well known brands but have no problems buying from small and indie brands if the B2C (business to customers) interaction is good. Two years ago I bought a timepiece from a very small brand called Autodromo and have never regretted the purchasing experience. Bradley Price, their founder, reached out to me directly when I had a question and presented the state of his inventory transparently. Smaller brands have a tougher time getting attention. We see this a ton in e-commerce where new store owners have huge hurdles in terms of cart abandonment or checkout completion.
Take a look at this chart below for cart abandonment in 2016. If we bypass the first reason (not universally applicable), the next big ones are related to customer shopping experience and complicated checkout process.
My tips?
- Stay at it
- Polish polish polish
- Invest in expanding your communication channels
- Test and optimize the overall shopping experience
Source Material
It’s hard to dish out money for a product/service when I can’t find relevant articles, reviews, FAQs, product manuals, or communities around it. Of course, this won’t apply to every product on the market but I prefer when products have identities themselves. This is good indication that a product will continue to receive support and updates for a good period of time. 3rd party reviews or community review videos on YouTube catches my attention all the time. I can easily browser other user experiences and get a feel for how the product handles in real world situations.
The People
People I interact with prior to a purchase is paramount. This may be the company’s support staff, the CEO, their sales people, doesn’t matter. It really pays to invest in the proper and adequate training for all employees who interact with customers. We’re a customer service company so we obviously care most about this topic. The good news is, companies are getting better at training employees. According to the most recent 2016 study led by Accenture and many other research:
Among companies with training programs, 11% say those budgets have been reduced over the past year; 39% report an increase, and 50% remained the same.
I’d say that’s a win.
68% of workers say training and development is the most important workplace policy.
At least we know your employees want to care.
54% of 2014 & 2015 grads received formal training from their first employer.
This is a bit of a bummer but I’m sure companies will get better at this in 2017.
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