Luxury expert Pamela Danziger's latest research on shopping and "why we buy what we don’t need", was recently featured on CNN In the Money. The "quantum theory of shopping’ describes consumers’ shopping behavior based upon only four key varibles:

            P = (N + F + A) E2

Propensity to buy is defined by:

N= Need or some perceived consumer need for the item

F= Features of the product that make the item more or less desireable

A=Affordability or whether the item is worth the price or not

E=Emotion which is the dominant factor in the overall shopping equation

The key factor influencing the consumers’ likelihood to buy is Emotion 

Emotion is the critical factor that retailers and marketers must manage to create desire.  Emotion plays off and magnifies each of the other factors — Need-Features-Affordability — and it is what ultimately drives people to buy stuff that they otherwise don’t need. 

About the Author

Pamela N. Danziger is a nationally recognized expert in consumer insights for luxury marketers, whether they sell luxuries to the masses or the ‘classes.’  She is president of Unity Marketing www.unitymarketing.com  a marketing consulting firm she founded in 1992 to unite marketers with their target markets through consumer insights. Her latest book, Let Them Eat Cake:  Marketing Luxury to the Masses — as well as the Classes, (Dearborn Trade Publishing, $27, hardcover) was published in January 2005.  She also authored Why People Buy Things They Don't Need:  Understanding and Predicting Consumer Behavior (Chicago: Dearborn Trade Publishing, 2004).