The Ottawa Citizen ran a very interesting story today on the factors that drive our shopping impulses. Unity Marketing, a Pennsylvania marketing consultancy summarizes the shopping impulse as:
P = (N + F + A) E², where
P = Propensity to buy a product
N = Need for the product
F = Desirable features for the product
A = Affordability of the product
E = the emotion guiding the decision
According to the equation, the emotion behind the decision to buy is much more important than other factors. From personal experience, I can buy the claim that emotion trumps everything else in shopping (for example, we buy things that we don’t really need) but I think boiling down something as complex as an impulse to buy into a neat little equation is just silly.
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4 responses so far ↓
1 Dave // Jan 5, 2006 at 9:10 pm
I would replace A (affordability) with A (credit on hand), whether that credit be real cash, money in a bank account, or credit on a credit card. Also, I would have A out in front, multiplying everything. If A is 0, according to their equation, P can still be a positive number, which makes no sense. If A is 0, the propensity to buy a product should be 0.
Anyways, my propensity to buy a product is proportional to A. I’ve now reduced A significantly, by no longer using credit cards at all, and my “propensity to buy a product” has gone down big time as well.
2 Canadian Capitalist // Jan 6, 2006 at 6:49 am
Dave: Great point. I was going to illustrate your point by using my propensity to buy a Ferrari (P = 0). I think it has great features (F > 0) and I certainly think it is a hot car (E really big!). Doesn’t quite add up, right?
Moral: The equations discovered by marketers is likely to give mathematicians a heart attack!
3 Joe // Jan 6, 2006 at 8:08 am
Let’s face it - people who are not good at math loving using equations that look complex to simplify abstract comments. ERTW.
4 Shawn // Jan 6, 2006 at 12:19 pm
Its basically meaningless as an equation. How could someone quantify these factors?? Its no more scientific or useful than the silly recipes for things such as “how to have a happy family”…1 cup of love, 1 tsp of hugs, etc etc.
They would have been much better off if they just said these are the factors that they believe affect P, and forget about the equation.
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