Category Archives: Consumer behavior

A bridge too late

Verizon Wireless confirmed that they’re going to stop selling their “Hub” home phone product.
When the Hub was launched nine months ago, their press release claimed . . .
Only Verizon Wireless can launch a new touch screen home phone system designed to replace old-style home phones with a souped-up home communications system, bridging wireline and wireless [...]

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The company – customer disconnect

A recent survey (link to slides) sponsored by PowerReviews, a company that provides a product review service, is another reminder of the disconnect between companies and their customers.
The surprising finding, as shown in the first chart below: Not the importance of reviews or the popularity of social media–Facebook, Twitter, and the like–but the very low [...]

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Thinking like your customers when designing site navigation

Much has been written about designing website navigation, but Organize.com does an especially good job of showing the kind of helpful navigation that results when you think like your customers.
By understanding that there are different types of customers that will be looking for things in different ways, the designers have created navigation that gives buyers [...]

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The impact of technology on the evolution of mass print media

The Boston Globe is only the latest print mass media publication to wrestle with their cost structure—they are currently losing roughly $1,000,000/week—and with every incident, “Whither newspapers?” turns into “Whither journalism?”
This confuses many things, including what is created (a news story) with the means and form of delivery (ink on paper tossed on to my [...]

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Misusing market research in assessing the demand for new services

In response to an article reporting the findings of a recent global study by Accenture in which it was claimed that consumer market research showed “. . . 54 percent indicating their don’t want or need mobile video services:”

“This is a great example of research that is not helpful in making investment and partnering decisions, [...]

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Buying in a post-store world

The web is the store—marketplace, really—and the search engine is the interface, right?
It wasn’t always this way, and it’s instructive to consider the underlying forces that drove this and the role of some of the Web’s largest companies in this evolution.
Buyer behavior today
Here’s the way in which I buy most things, which I imagine is [...]

Also posted in Channels, Mobile applications, Retail stores, The competition between the Web and bricks and mortar stores, The economy, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 1 Comment