POST PURCHASE DISTRESS

Application: Marketing Communication, Sales Methods

The Concept

If the purchase of any item is emotionally challenging or if it is expensive, buyers experience post purchase distress. This is worry or anxiety caused by the purchase. However, it can be allayed by the buyer admiring the product or showing it to others. Some buyers of new cars, for example, return to the showroom to collect the brochure of the car they bought. It is also helped by good quality collateral. So, marketers should think through the moments of anxiety that their customer might experience and create physical devices to allay this discomfort. A marketing manager anticipates and obviates such concern.

It also occurs in business-to-business markets. Business buyers may be concerned about the effect of a purchase on their budgets, the effort to justify the item to others, damage to their credibility, or risk to their political capital. If this anxiety is not managed, then problems occur. It can cause them to re-examine the deal and query value. The “tombstones” routinely created after mergers or acquisitions epitomize the achievement of a well completed, possibly worrisome project. They are a tangible embodiment of “post purchase distress”.

History, Context, Criticism, and Development

It is hard to find any substantial theory or marketing programmes around this concept prior to the mid 20th century. It was, perhaps, first taken seriously after Leon Festinger published on “cognitive dissonance”. Dissonance takes place when customers have difficulty with a purchase decision they have made. It might be because they are dissatisfied with aspects of the purchase, like price. They might, for instance, come across an alternative which gives them a better outcome at a cheaper price. Or they may have made the purchase on impulse and the regret it because of the effect on their budget. Smart marketers now recognize that, if this is not handled by methods to reassure buyers, negative word-of-mouth can build up affecting reputation, brand, and repurchase rates.

Voices and Further Reading

• “Post purchase dissonance – the belief by the purchaser that he or she may have made the wrong decision – is a well known phenomenon for such consumer products as automobiles and appliances. However, a study in which this writer participated revealed that 44% of the industrial purchasers also experienced this feeling to some extent, especially those with little previous knowledge of the product purchased or with little experience as a purchasing agent for their company.” Hise, R., 1977.
• “Dissonance theory can help to explain why evaluations of a product tend to increase after it has been purchased, i.e. post purchase dissonance. The cognitive element ‘I made a stupid decision’ is dissonant with the element ‘I am not a stupid person’, so people tend to find even more reasons to like something after buying it.” Solomon, M. et al., 2006.

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