Brand Loyalty, Trying Alternatives, and Buyer's Remorse

I am an avid gum chewer. I guess you could also refer to me as an addict and a chain gum chewer. I actually find gum to be essential to my survival in everyday life. Another aspect of my buying behavior is that I am very brand loyal. This is a learned behavior which I have acquired throughout the entirety of my life. For example, I only like Crest toothpaste, I only buy Sunbeam bread, and I will only use Elixir strings on my guitar.

With this seemingly random information in mind, here is a story of my recent consumer behavior that ties it all together. I will typically only buy Stride gum. Although I am not a big fan of the upgrade to Stride 2.0, I am still loyal to the brand. I like the texture of the gum over that of other brands, and the flavor lasts for a sufficient amount of time. Recently, I was in a hurry at Walmart. I was in the check out line, and realized that I needed to buy gum. I looked at the check out options, but Stride was not one of them. Since I did not have time to get out of line and go to the gum aisle, I chose an alternative. It was Icebreakers Cubes: watermelon flavor, by the way.

Soon after making this purchase and leaving Walmart, I was experiencing buyer's remorse. And by soon I mean very soon. The gum's flavor lasted until I made it out of the parking lot. This was very disappointing, and it definitely affected my future decisions to try alternatives for convenience and time saving purposes. I think I will stick to stride. I have been chewing a piece for an hour, and it still has flavor. This is what gum is supposed to be.

Online Shopping & The World Series

I, like many college students, happen to share a common pastime with soccer moms and rural communities across America: online shopping. With the invention of the internet (thanks, Al Gore), the average college student has access to the purchase of just about any product in a variety of stores from the comfort of our own dorm room or apartment.

Just this weekend, the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series! Being the avid Cards fan that I am, I recognized a problem and thought to myself, "Hey, I need a World Series champions t-shirt." So off to the internet I went, and quickly found myself browsing my prototypical online sports store, Football Fanatics. Their store is the only one I've found that fits the schema I've set for an online sports store: it has an abundance of products from every one of my favorite teams, items I cannot find anywhere else, fair prices; and a reasonable, flat-rate shipping price.

I began to bypass items from official MLB outfitter Majestic and exclusively searched for items manufactured by my prototype brand for sporting attire - Nike. I have hardcore brand loyalty to Nike and subsidiary brands because of numerous positive past experiences and the brand fulfills any and all social, functional, and symbolic needs I may have from sporting goods.

I was unable to find a Nike product that I felt could satisfy my perceived need for a World Series champions t-shirt, but because of the dynamic nature of needs, a new need arose as I felt I had to purchase some sort of Cardinals shirt mostly in honor of this momentous occasion, but also because I had spent so much time already looking.

I made a low-involvement decision and settled on this super cool long-sleeved t-shirt; just like that, my latest online shopping adventure was over and thirty hard-earned dollars were gone.