How Companies Trick You into Buying Their Products
Chris Kohler,
in his book How They Trick You, describes economics as a form of
collective psychology. When enough people feel the same way and act on those
feelings, the world changes. Markets shift, prices surge, products disappear
from store shelves, and all of this can be harnessed for profit. In this sense,
he argues that economics is not merely a theory or an academic discipline—it is
a trap into which we fall several times each week.
Economics,
then, is no longer just an abstract concept that many hear about without fully
understanding. It has become something closer to a battlefield of psychological
warfare, where consumers are unaware that they are active participants despite
engaging in it every day—and more often than not, losing one battle after
another. Their opponents are constantly lying in wait: corporations and their
sophisticated marketing campaigns, meticulously designed by teams of
psychologists, marketers, and data analysts to exploit cognitive biases,
encouraging consumers to spend more, stay longer, and keep coming back.
While consumers
rarely think about companies until a product catches their attention, companies
never stop thinking about consumers and how to draw them into their traps. By
the time a consumer's eyes fall upon a product, the choice has often already
been made on their behalf, without their knowledge. What appears to be a
spontaneous decision is, in reality, neither accidental nor entirely their own.
Beauty
Lies in the Eye of the Beholder
"The
beauty of a thing is multiplied in the eyes of the one who admires it."
Ibn Hazm wrote these words in The Ring of the Dove nearly a thousand
years ago, never imagining that they would one day capture the very principle
determining what we place in our shopping carts and what we leave on the shelf.
Today, this principle is known as choice architecture: the deliberate
design of products, applications, and websites in ways that gently steer
consumers toward decisions intended by the designers of the package or the
interface, all without making us feel that we are being directed. Like the
strings of a marionette, we cannot see the invisible hand controlling our
choices, even though we know it must exist.
When you
encounter a product accompanied by a message such as "Only a few
left" or "Offer ends in two hours"—usually displayed in bright
red to create urgency—you may believe you are buying it to avoid missing an
opportunity. In reality, the decision was largely made the moment that sense of
scarcity was triggered. You then move into what marketers call the
"decision zone." Once the product is in your hands, you begin to
value it more simply because it belongs to you, a phenomenon known as the endowment
effect. We consistently overestimate the value of things we own simply
because they are ours. This is why many people remain loyal to a particular
brand after purchasing from it before. They reinforce the correctness of their
previous decisions by repeating them.
The reverse is
equally true. We justify our latest purchase by insisting on the superior
quality of the brand, even though our judgment is often based less on objective
standards than on a desire to confirm that our earlier decisions were correct.
Every purchase is therefore connected to the one before it and influences the
one that follows. Consumer decisions are never made independently of the self
or its cognitive biases; rather, they revolve around them.
The
Value of a Product Is Determined by the Person Willing to Buy It
Psychological
manipulation does not end with influencing whether consumers buy a product. It
also extends to determining how much they are willing to pay for it. One of the
clearest recent examples is the frenzy surrounding the collectible plush dolls
that generated more than half a billion dollars in revenue for the Chinese
company that manufactures them, representing a 397 percent increase compared to
the same period the previous year.
The economic
lesson here is that some limited-edition versions of these dolls sold for
thousands of dollars. Soft cotton toys could never have reached such prices had
there not been buyers willing to pay them. Their value was largely manufactured
through deliberately restricted supply, a strategy known in economics and
marketing as artificial scarcity.
Another
important pricing phenomenon is the widespread tendency to associate higher
prices with higher quality. This bias is so common that it has its own name:
the price–quality heuristic. Researchers have even linked it to the
placebo effect.
One well-known
study by Dan Ariely and fellow researchers at Stanford University demonstrated
this connection. Volunteers underwent mild electric shocks—a standard
experimental protocol for measuring pain tolerance—and were all given identical
placebo pills containing no active ingredients. Half of the participants were
told they had received the expensive version of the medication, while the other
half were told they had received a cheaper version. As expected, 85 percent of
those who believed they had taken the expensive pill reported significant pain
relief, compared with only 61 percent of those who believed they had taken the
inexpensive one.
Ariely
concluded that people unconsciously associate higher prices with higher
quality, allowing expectations alone to shape their experience.
I See
Myself Through Your Eyes
In Status
Anxiety, Alain de Botton argues that modern societies revolve around social
status. Within capitalist systems, status has become something that can often
be displayed through possessions. A particular smartphone brand or its latest
model can serve as a visible indicator of one's social standing.
The same
applies to the cars we drive. Simply driving a vehicle from a certain
manufacturer prompts many observers to associate it automatically with a
particular social status. Whereas status during the Victorian era was
communicated primarily through houses, clothing, and lifestyle, today it
extends to nearly everything that can be purchased. In many cases, people
acquire products not because they genuinely need them, but because they wish to
protect or elevate their perceived social standing.
Companies are
acutely aware of this reality. Their pursuit of greater profits has led them
beyond linking products to social status; they now seek to connect them to
personal identity itself. Seth Godin explains this idea in Tribes,
arguing that the most successful companies do not sell products—they sell a
sense of belonging. Apple, for example, does not merely sell computers; it
sells creativity. Buying into the brand becomes a personal affirmation of
everything it claims to represent. If creativity is the brand's identity, then
owning its products subtly suggests that the customer is creative as well.
The result is
that consumers become enthusiastic ambassadors for the brands they purchase,
defending them without receiving anything in return. Criticism of the product
begins to feel like criticism of their own judgment, because the purchase has
become intertwined with their identity.
Brand loyalty
is ultimately the highest aspiration of any company, regardless of what it
sells. There is no greater prize than a customer who remains loyal for life—a
perfectly aimed arrow that strikes its target with precision. There is,
however, a profound difference between a genuine desire that deserves to be
fulfilled and a manufactured desire carefully cultivated for exploitation.
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