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August 02, 2008

Buying Spinach

Recently, I've been participating in computer forums and photography forums. It's a wonder to us who've been playing with these gadgets for years now, what we take for granted and what other people don't. Over the past 20 years, more and more high tech has been packaged into retail, off the shelf gadgets for the typical consumer. It is a good thing, to actualise, in your hand or otherwise, the work that our researchers and producers have laboured to produce. You may need a University degree or higher to carry out the research, development and design but you certainly don't need a degree to use this stuff. The mobile phone is one example - as long as you can dial a number, you're already using the third generation of wireless communication.

But what about the products where the consumer wants to choose? What criteria and what knowledge does the consumer need? Well, for the mobile phone, a choice of colour (pink, anyone?), size, bling value and yeah, it's gotta turn on and receive your provider's wireless signal. For a car, well, it's gotta have your personality match, not drink like the blazes and again, what colour please?

In some cultures, the choice is easy. Most of the buyer's are followers - "I want the one that my bro-in-law bought please". Someone buys one, shows it off to kin and a whole bunch of sales eventuates.

In Internet cultures though, we have the exact opposite - forums. You've never seen so much pixel peeping in your life. They compare Image Quality, Sensor Dynamic Range, Image Noise for digital cameras, they compare the 3D gaming performance in frames per sec for 3D video cards, the angle of view for LCD screens. As long as some lab makes a test, you have a lot of armchair evaluators giving their opinion. Everyone's an expert - courtesy of the internet where the most passionate essays are written and archived. Sometimes, you think you can see some crazys in the assessment but other times, you're not quite sure - the fellow could have 30 years in the industry and a Ph.D in something or other.

Where does this leave the "normal" person who doesn't want to just follow the herd, but wants to make a decision between competing models? Well, in my opinion, with a splitting headache, long hours of argument, research. And the possibility that, at the end of the day, after purchase, they still get buyer's remorse. Maybe that's what feeds eBay - lots of buyers remorse searching for a balm.

So, what or how do you make up your mind when you make a high tech, electronic purchase? Do you:

• ask the salesperson for advice?
• write the names on slips of paper and throw them into a barrel to pick?
• do extensive research, spend hours and brainpower grokking or trying to grok the tech, then draw a purchasing matrix of features vs product?
• come and ask at the Bleeding Edge Forum?
• buy the most expensive because if you throw money at a purchase, you will have bling power?
• buy the meanest cheapest product and then upgrade in a year?

Posted by Anandasim at August 2, 2008 07:01 PM

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Posted by: Andrew Ballard at August 3, 2008 02:40 PM

Posted by: anandasim at August 3, 2008 03:32 PM

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