Have you ever wondered why you buy certain products or identify with one company over another? Research coming from the University of British Columbia may have some insights.
Professor Darren Dahl, consumer psychologist and Fred H. Siller Professor in Applied Marketing Research at the University of British Columbia, studies why consumers make certain decisions, buy specific products, and behave in particular ways in places like retail stores and restaurants.
His research has yielded some surprising results. Recently his group found that even though most people think that courteous service is always a good thing, sometimes a rude salesperson can actually lead to you buying a product.
Dahl’s work benefits people on both sides of the retail relationship – it helps consumers by empowering them to understand what’s happening in the retail environment and it benefits businesses because it helps them understand how consumers think which in turn helps them build their marketing strategy.
But this type of research goes beyond the material world. By learning why consuming a particular product is so important to us, the study of consumption is really giving us a true understanding of who we are as people.
