It is not your fault, you buy useless things
knowing some ways companies trick you into spending more
I know you have read thousands of articles vilifying the hedonistic lifestyle, and I will not argue otherwise. We need to save money for unpredictable events. The majority of people cannot spend an infinite amount of money without leaving a big hole in the wallet. Most need to spend money strategically to ensure their survival in the future.
I do not blame you for buying stuff that ended up useless in the next three days. Though reckless spending gives an immediate boost to our happiness, one must remember the future financial consequences it has. However, do you ever think why lately it is so difficult not to check out stuff that you do not need in the first place? This article will try to use different perspectives to understand why we spend so recklessly. Though individuality plays a role, we forgot that everyone is a product of the environment.
The advancement of ads is being pushed by a saturated market, where all business owners are forced to increase their sales. A massive amount of competitors forces companies to adopt the method to prevent bankruptcy. This urgency leads to the creation of many marketing strategies from the traditional to the modern one. Companies can convince us to believe that we need to buy a product that we do not even recognize its function.
Why you also decided to buy yogurt and potato chips, meanwhile initially, you just want to eat chocolate?
and… you just put everything in your cart
Market basket analysis is the answer. In short words, business owners collect information about a combination of products in all transaction records. The more likely customers buy a specific variety, the store will put that combination close to each other so you can quickly grab both of them. This strategy is aimed to minimize the effort given by customers to find more products and put them in the cart and is utilized in an item layout configuration to attract your attention. That is why we often feel it is not easy to decide which one we need to buy, so we purchase all existing options. After we went home, we suddenly realized that it is just too much. Even when you succeed in taking your chocolate from a catalog without seeing other snacks, you are still exposed to the best seller product in front of the cashier.
One such way to prevent this is to bring a limited amount of cash, thus you cannot buy more than your initial budget. If you use an e-wallet or online banking, you might consider creating a separate account as one of the solutions. We have a useful feature in digital transactions to save our money, like setting a monthly limit on Amazon Spending.
Why can ads about basketball shoes randomly pop up on your screen just because you have watched “how to play basketball for a beginner” on youtube?
are phones spying on us?
Let me introduce you to the world of clickstream analysis. It is all about collecting data each time you click a link, an image, and any video necessary to represent your character and desire. This data also consists of how long you stay in 1 type of content that will reflect how interested you are in such particular content. A specific algorithm will try to predict your emotion, tendency, and pattern during shopping.
The more data companies have, the more accurate their prediction regarding our personality. Clickstream analysis is practical because the source of data comes from famous search engines and social media. A thousand clicks of yours converted into prediction and customer profile. Google ads and Instagram ads provide all relevant information regarding potential customer profiles. The business owner can push targeted advertisements based on our character. Companies offer the product at the correct time and moment to increase their sale. However, the good news is now you can stop thinking that e-commerce is spying on your cell phone all day long.
How you can be “hypnotized” to buy stuff
It is because business actors know that emotion, not rational thinking, dominates each transaction. All advertisements will emotionally press the urgency to buy the product today. This is why you often see a discount offer for a limited time and label of rare creation which company can produce more to make it a typical product.
In the digital market, business actors optimized their UI/UX features to make sure you are comfortable scrolling products until the very last page. The optimization is adjusted based on our profile as a potential buyer. If a specific product targets teenagers, the business owner will try to collect data from social media to know our interests. Companies will use all data as effectively as possible, starting to use influencers who are close to the teenager as the brand ambassador and update content that is in line with the current trend related to teenagers.
Another method to “hypnotize” you is the funneling strategy. A funneling approach is a collection of steps to convince you that you really need the product. Companies are not using the hard-selling method and go door-to-door to say their product’s feature. Usually, any brands use the soft selling method. It is so soft to the point where you do not even know that you are becoming their prospect. Initially, business actors start giving you free content, e-book, or seminars to show you specific issues. In the following steps, companies try to implicitly promote their product as an alternative to solve your problem.
Why it seems like everyone pushes us to buy the latest device and gives us no room to refuse
One of the famous tricks is massive branding through intensive advertisement. We could see more than one hundred ads per day on average. Technological companies build a nuance, implicitly saying that you cannot claim yourself as modern without having the latest version of their product. Unfortunately, it only provides minor improvement from the previous generation. Fashion brand builds a message saying that you only can claim social status by owning their product. It is hard to choose not to buy the trending outfit when all of your friends wear it. Fear of missing out is our weakness that leads to reckless spending.
I am not going to justify or blame your reckless spending behavior. Maybe some people are privileged enough to get away from any financial consequences of reckless spending and feel the happiness out of it, but not everyone is born with a lucky lottery. This article aims to say that it is not entirely your fault to buy things you do not need because someone constantly formulates a strategy to make you keep buying their product. Anxiety is a common enemy everyone faces. Continuously blaming oneself will not give more control in our life. Understanding the reason for our behavior is the first step for change.
Let me know in the comment section if I missed something!
Written by Krisna Pradhana, a student at Gadjah Mada University majoring in computer science.
edited by Sandy Sanjaya, a European Master’s in Nuclear Energy student, with interest in energy, data science, and critical thinking.
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