Posts Tagged ‘Psychology’

The. Sales. Ouch.

Now that VAT has increased to 20 per cent, you’re probably checking price tags a little more carefully before parting with your hard-earned cash. The problem is that shops are fighting back. According to Philip Graves, author of Consumer.ology, a study of the psychology of shopping, retailers are using their knowledge of the human mind to turn the VAT increase to their advantage.

“Thousands of people are being manipulated into actually spending more,” he says. “Many shops are claiming that they are not increasing VAT, and that is encouraging people to spend. But there is more to this than meets the eye.”

Behind the price tag, Graves explains, lie a variety of psychological tricks. For example, research has shown that people are more inclined to buy an item when it has a “charm price” of .99 on the tag. The VAT increase, however, would demand strange prices such as £32.20, which are not attractive to the consumer. So the shops are taking a two-pronged approach. “On the one hand they are keeping some items at the original charm price, and highlighting the fact that the VAT is staying the same,” Graves explains. “With other items, however, they are raising the price even higher than the VAT increase demands, from £34.99 to £39.99, for example. Amazingly, people will buy something for £39.99 more readily than £32.20. So overall, the shops come out on top.”

Read the rest of the article on the Times website (subject to paywall restrictions)

The UK: a nation of indecision?

In case you hadn’t noticed, a much-hyped single called Choices is released this week. Written by the mildly irritating English-Swedish pop outfit The Hoosiers, it is a record-breaking 43 minutes long. As if one gimmick wasn’t enough, the band invited fans to write some of the verses and appear in the music video. But even though Choices is a pygmy of a tune compared with the iconic songs of previous eras such as All You Need Is Love, Purple Haze and Smells Like Teen Spirit, The Hoosiers’ new single might one day rank among them as the song of this generation.

The reason? It’s the lyrics, stupid. “Stop giving me choices. Stop giving me choices,” whines Irwin Sparkes, the elfin lead singer. “I’m the victim of this day and age, I’ve forgotten how to feel, I’ve forgotten how to change.”

According to Harriet Bradley, professor of sociology at the University of Bristol, this is an apt summary of the way things are. This week she published the results of a ten-month project looking at how people in the UK deal with choice. The report, State of Confusion, presents the results of a study of 6,000 people from across the UK. The conclusion is resounding: Britain is a “nation crippled by too much choice”. Read the rest of this entry »