In 2003, The Henley Centre, a market research organization in the United Kingdom, surveyed consumers in eleven industrialized countries that together account for more than 75% of the global consumer spending. The main finding — consumers were close to the saturation for things.
 Â
  Their conclusions “Many of these people don’t actually need anything any more, […]
“Remember when grocery shopping was a chore? Who would do it for fun? Try millions of consumers and more by the day.”
Â
  USA Today (www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2006-04-16-destination-supermarkets_x.htm?POE=click-refer).
 Â
  In our paper Tires and Bicycles: A Tale of Two Purchases, we argue that customers use two distinct strategies when making purchases. When customers buy a product for its utility, […]
  The “Geeks in Toyland” article in the most recent issue of Wired magazine is definitely worth the read (www.wired.com). This shows what happens when customers become highly engaged in an experience with your product. Admittedly, the story is about Lego’s Mindstorm product, which requires engagement to use it. But, just imagine if you had […]
In the movie, Get Shorty, the Chili Palmer loan shark character is played by John Travolta. In one scene he is teaching the Danny DeVito character how to play a loan shark. Travolta says “look at me,” “look at me” while looking at Dan DeVito with a blank expression on his face. Then he says, […]
Consumer advocate, David Horowitz, recently sited an interesting study. A Dutch scientist found that 50% of all “malfunctioning” products returned to stores by customers worked perfectly. Typically a customer will struggle to get a device working for about 20 minutes.  After that they give up and return it to the store.
 Â
  Product designers, are you […]
