Two in one, 5000 miles and a ticket free, 5 cups of coffee and the 6th is on us, Rs 20,000 purchase and 20% off. The lure of the offers is almost irresistible. Organizations have long focused on the love of buyers to get "something for nothing". The free-bee satisfaction is almost unmatched. Marketers for years have studied how to attract, motivate, and get consumers to purchase more and more.
The world has undergone a world of change. The 21st century has been a mixed bag for marketers and consumers both. For the businesses never before have there been more opportunities to sell and sell in every part of the world. For the consumers never before have there been more options to buy and to buy from every part of the world. This dual opportunity paradox has created competition, conflict, commotion that has resulted in the rise and fall of organizational sales and consumer loyalty.
We see bizarre scenes on the days of special sales days, especially in Pakistan. Sales are announced by companies or retailers normally as end of the season for a week. These are still normal. However when sales are announced for a single day or special day, especially if it is on the category of women wear items, all wallets and purses break lose.
There is a complete mayhem in big stores where scenes of educated well to do women trying to push out other women from the ails and pull at the same shirt piece in the hands of other women makes a funny but silly sight. Videos abound of angry women fighting with each other over owning the same item.
Fist fights and sales counter knock downs have also marked such "loot sale" encounters. The point to note is that these individuals may be perfectly normal people otherwise but on such points of sale their psychology and personality goes for a tumble.
Getting tempted by the unavailable or the soon not available psychology is as old as the Adam and Eve story of the forbidden apple. Just because the apple was forbidden, and even though it was just an apple, human beings could not resist it. Even since marketers have targeted this human weakness of going for the rare, banned, exclusive stuff. This psychology in marketing is known as cognitive dissonance. The dissatisfaction with what you have and the desire for what you don't have is a human characteristic.
The discussion of why people want to do the forbidden action is separate and debatable. However the marketers have used this fascination of the "forbidden apple" to make their offers "exclusive" and "maynot be available later" temptations in consumer mind share.
The search and research for what triggers this consumer "must have" behavior is eternal. However, it wasn't until the early 1800s that psychology transitioned from a philosophical nature to a scientific one. There have been many models developed on this behavior.
One such explanation was developed by Fogg whose behavioural inducement included three elements to occur i.e. Motivation, Ability and Triggers. When sales happen all three are present and if sales do not happen, one of them may be absent.
Motivation includes either pain or pleasure points of behavior consideration. Either due to a need gap leading to a pain point of fear or rejection, or a pleasure point of desire for status or belonging to a certain group the consumer starts contemplating alternative avenues of fulfilling that need.
The ability, either time wise, or money wise, or access wise, makes it possible for the consumer to have a propensity towards purchasing a particular brand. Thus, the special occasion sales advertisements that either flashes on your TV or social media timelines induce immediate behavior that wants instant gratification.
The trick is that the triggers have to be designed keeping in view the millennial generation. This generation that is born at the end of the last century and has now become a consumer in this century is very different from their parents. They are smarter, lazier, demanding, and very vocal.
They are the Smartphone generation, where in their very first year of life, they are given iPods by their parents to surf their favourite cartoons and jingles. By the time they are in their early school years they are not just influencers but buyers too as they can use digital age technology to choose brands they like and then force their parents to sponsor the e-commerce exchange.
One main trigger that motivates millennials into exclusive action is to be identified in a particular band of people representing a lifestyle and personality. For example the latest announcement of sales day for "Single People" surprised everybody by its success. This is contrary to their parents' era celebration of Valentine's Day where couple shopping for gifts for each other marked the event.
This generation wants independence and a break from the traditions. The trigger that appeals to their rebellious instinct that we are different and ok with ourselves generated massive response. Just to cite a single example in 2013, only 21% of Singles' Day sales came from mobile devices. That percentage point grew 42.60% in 2014, 68% in 2015, 82% in 2016, and 90% in 2017 during a four-year period where total sales revenue tripled.
Triggers have to be customized to cultural context. In Pakistan in the recent years this concept of special sales was started. Black Friday was advertised and many people were very excited. However soon there was a reaction as Friday is a holy day in our culture and the social media reaction forced the sellers to change it to White Friday and Blessed Friday.
Daraz.com is an example of how the special Friday sales have become consumer frenzy in Pakistan too. Daraz scored Pakistan's first 3 billion rupee sale in revenue last year, confirming 4 times more orders compared to 2016 sales, thronged by 3 times more traffic on the e-commerce portal.
The beauty about online sales is that you do not have to get up and moor through traffic jams to reach a store; you do not have to jostle in overcrowded stores where each item is being snatched by many buyers; you do not have to wait endlessly for a harassed server to just rush past you without making eye contact; you do not have to queue up in "pay here" lines waiting endlessly for your turn to come.
The millennial consumer does not just want the traditional "doorstep delivery" but a "click stop delivery". These millennials in their night pyjamas while surfing on the highway see the special sale trigger and feel good about the fact that all year long these sellers "loot" their wallets while now is the time to pay them in the same coin. (The writer can be reached at [email protected])
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