Buying Just to Buy

  

After being unable to participate in Black Friday shopping due to spending time with family out of town, I could not wait to take advantage of online deals on Cyber Monday.  I woke up early to surf my favorite apparel websites in hopes of being able to afford items I normally could not.  The brands in my evoked set for clothing are Abercrombie, Express, J. Crew, Hollister, and American Eagle.  I was not really shopping for things I needed; after all, I had just made a Christmas list of things for my parents and family members to buy for me.  I felt like I needed to buy something because I did not want to miss out on the great deals that other people were finding.  I carefully evaluated each website’s deals and calculated the prices of items I might want to buy.  As the day wore on, I still hadn’t bought anything by 11pm.  Finally, at 11:45pm, I bought two sweaters from J. Crew.  They were 25% off and could be shipped for free, saving me around $40 total.   

            My purchase on Cyber Monday relates to consumer behavior in many ways.  I used attribute processing to compare the products of the different brands one attribute at a time, primarily by price.  I wanted to buy typically high-priced clothing (at a discount) that will serve as a status symbol of a class higher than my own.  It is also clear that I felt pressured to purchase items on Cyber Monday because I viewed it as a societal norm to do so.  Through my long internet searches on Cyber Monday, I realized that I have a high need for cognition because I enjoyed searching through multiple ads and weighing the expected values of the products.