Why Do Consumers Not Always Buy the “best” Products in the Market Place?

Destiny Haines

September 25, 2018

Why do consumers not always buy the “best” products in the market place?

        What are some of the first things you contemplate when buying an item? Quality, Price, how well you know the name of the brand, friend recommendation, or maybe even a catchy commercial that you saw earlier that day? All of these can be deciding factors to something as small as milk. For me personally, I would say it depended on my current situation. I tend to be more attracted to brands that I know have good quality.

        Quality over quantity was one of my grandmother’s favorite saying when I was growing (so was “Girl! If you do that again I’m going to tan your rear!” but we will save that for another paper). Before buying a product whether it be food or a non-consumable I am looking at the ingredients (or reviews if it isn’t food). I want to know exactly what is in the product I am about to purchase. This could also be the case with many other consumers. Knowing the quality of a product has become a huge trend especially with food. Everyone wants to know exactly how something is made. Now, this isn’t the case for everyone. Where some consumers appreciate a product that is “greener”, others might view quality as a price point.

        I know for me personally, I will buy based on my view of quality unless I’m “college kid broke”. Sometimes, I just don’t have the money to buy the actual products that I want so I have to settle for a cheaper option. I believe price has a huge role to play in the question being asked above. However, unlike my situation of buying because it’s cheaper, some people might not want to buy a certain product because of how cheap it is. For example, the Peloton bicycle company sold their bicycles for half of what their competition was asking. Instead of this spiking sales and increasing revenue no one wanted to buy it. Consumers had the impression that if it is that cheaply priced than it’s also probably cheaply made. As soon as they doubled the price of their bicycles, they started to notice an increase in sales. This is just one example of price giving a perception of quality. Sometimes neither the quality nor the price have an impact on the decisions consumers make. That’s where brand recognition comes in.