FIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL SHIFTS - PART 2

Consumer Empowerment:

• Social media has given people a huge megaphone and made them the most powerful people. But why? Consumer increasingly rely on the words and actions of other shoppers to guide their purchases.
• "I don't trust websites that don't include product reviews. What are they trying to hide?" (A online shopper who sums up the opinion of many online shopper)
• More than 70% of consumer trust reviews
• 80% of consumer changed their minds about buying a product after reading a negative review they found online.
• Consumers pay attention to the amount of reviews. They are fully aware that there are plenty of fake reviews on the internet. Therefore two 5 stars reviews are less trustworthy than one hundred 4.5 stars reviews.
• Consumer typically just write reviews when they are either very happy or very unhappy.

Power to the People

• if consumers are dissatisfied they have the chance to complain on social media. Within a short time the complaint will be targeting all followers of this brand. Due to social media consumers can exert power over brands because the brands mostly have to give way to avoid losing customers.
• Not always the power of consumer/customer have negative effects. Crowdsouring for instance is a highly potential way to develop new products or strategies because the customer is involved and is part of the development. Moreover, products created by crowdsourcing should be very popular. If you decide for the products most customer liked (e.g. on facebook) you can be sure that they will like this products and most likely buy it.

 "Once people have power [...] there is no way turning back. Consumers know their influence, and it has permanently affected their expectations and relationships with retailers and businesses. Consumer empowerment has contributed to a less reverential reletionship with brands and products, which means that marketers need to work harder to engage and involve consumers" (Kit Yarrow, Decoding the new consumer mind, 2014)

 

The next blog entry will be about "Faster Ways of Thinking".

Source: Yarrow, Kit; Decoding the New Consumer Mind - How and Why We Shop and Buy; March 2014