Sunday 20 October 2019

Buying Is All About Emotion – Just Thinking Out Loud


Just thinking out loud

You might think it is cognitive reasoning that determines what people buy. But an article in Inside Retail this week suggests it is not the consumer’s conscious mind that determines what they buy, it is the part of the brain which controls emotions.

That part of the brain, called the Limbic System, works much quicker than the cognitive reasoning part and often makes a decision before we are fully aware of it.

Could that explain why consumer confidence is so important to the level of retail sales? When times are really tough, when consumer confidence is really low, when the news out there is all bad, do those conditions inhibit emotional responses, and therefore inhibit buying?