June 21st, 2008
Possession Without Payment
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In a recent post, I naively wondered –
if there is a way for a brand to make people happy, and benefit from it, without asking them to buy anything.
In a world that will soon be driven by the “economics of free”, that may not be a trivial question anymore.
Then I read this paragraph from Paco Underhill’s ‘Why We Buy’ –
When does a shopper actually possess something? Technically, of course, it happens at the instant that the item is exchanged for money — at the register. But the register is the least pleasing part of the store; nobody is savoring the joy of possession at that moment. In fact, all that is experienced is loss (of money) and pain (of waiting in line, of waiting for the credit card approval, of waiting for the clerk to get the thing into the bag so you can leave). Clearly, possession is an emotional and spiritual process, not a technical one. Possession begins when the shopper’s senses start to latch onto the object. It begins in the eyes and then in the touch. Once the thing is in your hand, or on your back, or in your mouth, you can be said to have begun the process of taking it. Paying for it is a mere technicality, so the sooner a thing is placed in a shopper’s hand, or the easier it is for the shopper to try it or sip it or drive it around the block, the more easily it will change ownership, from the seller to the buyer.
How true, except that, in a “free” world, possession will be truly de-linked from payment, because there will be no payment to begin with. That’s a fascinating thought, isn’t it?
