Why “half price for the second cup” will promote consumption
For consumers traveling together, “half price for the second cup” is often more attractive than “25% off for one”. In fact, when buying two items at once, the discounts in the two ads are exactly the same. So why is “half price on the second cup” so uniquely appealing?
“Second Cup Half Price” and Shared Consumption
The effective environment of “half price for the second cup” is often in the context of group shopping. Multiple consumers participating in a consumption process is called “co-consumption”. Co-consumption behavior generally has two distinctive features, namely “co-buying” and “sharing”. Specifically, “co-purchasing” means that each participant must pay a certain price for the purchase of the product, such as joint payment; “sharing” means jointly enjoying the ownership of the subsequent use of the product.
Therefore, shared consumption is also fundamentally different from other forms of multi-person consumption. For example, collective consumption mainly emphasizes combining multiple familiar or unfamiliar consumers in exchange for discounts, such as group prices of commodities in shopping apps. In fact, consumers in collective consumption are still single-person purchases and single-person consumption, which does not include sharing commodity ownership with others.
When consuming alone, you often only need to make decisions based on your own attitudes, preferences, etc., without considering the opinions of others. In shared consumption, consumption behavior is the result of joint discussions among multiple consumers, and compared with individuals, there will be certain systematic deviations. For example, when eating in a restaurant, if you are eating alone, you generally only need to consider what food you like and pay for it alone; if you are dining with friends, you need to consider the tastes of both parties and share the cost. In the process of shared consumption, consumers’ personal choices will produce bias.
From the perspective of consumption decision-making, “half price for the second cup” encourages people to make joint consumption. Through joint consumption, consumers’ shopping choices may change to a certain extent.
“Half price for the second cup” and the risk of new commodities
When you look more carefully, you may find that many products marked with “half price for the second cup” are often new products that we are not familiar with. Choosing between familiar and unfamiliar products is a situation that people often encounter in the consumption process. Consumers’ risk perception affects decision-making outcomes.
As we all know, consumers are familiar with products that are reliable and safe, and people think that the risk of buying such products is low; on the contrary, people think that the risk of buying unfamiliar products is higher. In 1973, Professor Bateman of the School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles proposed five factors for the circumstances under which consumers would perceive risks, namely, consumers lack of information and experience in using the product, the product is a new product, Consumers do not trust brands, product prices are high, and purchasing decisions are important to consumers. It is easy for consumers to feel risky when purchasing unfamiliar products. In short, buying unfamiliar products may lead to “stepping on thunder”, for example, it is not the taste you like, it is inconvenient to use, etc.
In a single-person consumption environment, consumers tend to buy familiar goods in order to eliminate risks; this phenomenon will change when the number of consumers increases. According to risk transfer theory, people become more willing to take risks when they participate in group decision-making than individual decision-making, because the group can share the risk, thereby reducing the individual’s expectation of risk. Therefore, when we are in an environment where many people consume, the risk of buying unfamiliar goods is more acceptable, that is to say, the probability of multiple people buying unfamiliar goods will increase.
Having said that, looking at the marketing plan of “half price for the second cup”, the business logic becomes obvious. “Half price for the second cup” can promote the change of consumption mode from single person to multiple people, thereby reducing the sense of risk that new products bring to consumers. At the same time, multi-person consumption also encourages risk-taking behaviors, making consumers more “bold” in purchasing decisions.
master of consumption
Strategies like “half price for the second cup” emerge in endlessly in the marketing of merchants. The “one more bottle” in the bottle cap prompts consumers who are eager to win a prize to add it to the shopping cart; the “add one dollar to buy” even pushes consumers to buy more products without knowing it. The effectiveness of various marketing activities of merchants is often inseparable from the grasp of customers’ impulsive consumption psychology. People’s impulse consumption psychology generally has the following types.
Herd mentality. As the name suggests, people tend to blindly follow the crowd without considering their own actual situation when shopping. For example, when watching a shopping live broadcast, I saw other people rushing to buy goods, and I followed suit to buy a lot of “useless” items. Especially when lack of understanding of commodity information, people tend to follow the group decision-making and lose personal judgment, which leads to blind consumption.
Comparing mentality. When people have the psychology of comparing with others, they tend to have consumption behaviors beyond what they can bear. For example, they want to buy something when they see other people have something. Comparing psychology is often accompanied by comparison and competition behaviors, and promotes the need to be respected to be exaggerated, leading to excessive consumption.
The psychology of seeking differences. Contrary to the herd mentality, driven by this psychology, consumers want to be different in order to seek attention. If there is no shopping demand at first, and then find that the product is a limited edition, then buy it. The psychology of seeking differences generally originates from the pursuit of excessive demands on oneself, but irrational demands can easily lead to behavioral deviations, such as impulsive consumption.
In daily consumption, there is nothing wrong with these impulsive psychology, but if impulsive consumption is too frequent, you should properly adjust your mentality and treat consumption more rationally. For example, live within one’s means and consume moderately. Consumption expenditure should be in line with one’s own income level; avoid blindly following the crowd and cultivate a healthy consumption psychology. Understanding and mastering these principles can help us improve our quality of life and be the masters of consumption.
