Why People Buy
What actually moves a person to choose one product over another, and how much of it do they know?
Every product decision rests on a theory of why people choose. Most of those theories are never stated, and many are wrong. This path makes the theory explicit.
It starts with the motives people hide, even from themselves: status, belonging, signalling. It then turns to persuasion, the levers that move choices, and to the costs of too much choice. From there it moves to two practical bodies of evidence, one about how perception creates value and one about how brands actually grow, and ends with the design of products people return to, which raises the question of when engagement serves the user and when it does not.
The essay on recommendation feeds and the essay on digital payments show these forces at work in products, and the idea of Loss Aversion is a companion throughout.
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Starts beneath the surface. Simler and Hanson argue that many everyday choices, from what we buy to how we talk about it, serve motives we prefer not to admit, such as status and belonging.
- Read it for
- The chapters on consumption and signalling, and the idea that we deceive ourselves the better to deceive others.
- Carry forward
- What would a customer never say out loud about why they chose us?
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The Theory of the Leisure Class
Veblen named conspicuous consumption more than a century ago. Reading the original shows how old the logic of status goods is, and how sharp his observation remains.
- Read it for
- Conspicuous consumption and leisure, and the idea that some goods are valued because they are expensive.
- Carry forward
- Is any part of our price doing the work of a signal rather than a cost?
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The most practical map of the levers of persuasion, built on decades of experiments and fieldwork among salespeople and fundraisers.
- Read it for
- Reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority and scarcity, and how each can be used honestly or exploited.
- Carry forward
- Which of these levers does our product already pull, and would we be comfortable if customers knew?
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A counterweight to the assumption that more options always help. Schwartz shows how choice can paralyse and how maximisers and satisficers experience it differently.
- Read it for
- Choice overload, regret and the difference between maximising and satisficing, read alongside later research that found the effect depends on context.
- Carry forward
- Where are we asking customers to choose when they would rather we chose well for them?
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An advertising veteran’s case that people respond to meaning, context and perception more than to the logic of features and price, and that small psychological changes can outperform large rational ones.
- Read it for
- Perceived value, costly signalling in marketing, and why the opposite of a good idea can also be a good idea.
- Carry forward
- What problem could we solve by changing how something feels rather than what it is?
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The evidence-based corrective. Byron Sharp’s research shows that brands grow mainly by reaching more buyers and being easy to think of and find, rather than through deep loyalty.
- Read it for
- Mental and physical availability, the double jeopardy law and the limits of loyalty programmes.
- Carry forward
- Are we investing in persuading our few loyal customers when growth lies with the many light buyers?
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Turns from persuasion to understanding. People hire products to make progress in particular circumstances, and products succeed when they fit that job.
- Read it for
- The jobs-to-be-done framework, and the emotional and social dimensions of a job alongside the functional one.
- Carry forward
- What progress is the customer trying to make when they reach for our product?
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Ends with design for repeated use: how habit-forming products combine triggers, actions, variable rewards and investment. It should be read alongside its own warnings about manipulation.
- Read it for
- The hook model, and the author’s test for whether a habit serves the user.
- Carry forward
- Would our most engaged users say, on reflection, that the habit we built is good for them?
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