100. People Value A Product More Highly When It Is In Front Of Them

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Why Does It Seem To Cost More?

In person we can analyze a product physically and determine how much we are willing to pay for it. If we see a picture of the same product or a text description, do we value it just as much?

Research Study

Ben Bushong and a team of researchers in 2010 decided to test if people are willing to pay more for a product if they are presented in person than if they see a description or picture of it. It was recorded that the text description and picture were at the same level but people bid a lot more on the physical product. They also tried presenting a sample of the product to taste as well as placing the physical product behind a plexiglass and people still were not willing to pay as much as if they had the physical product in hand. Below are the various results.

It is believed that a physical product acts as a conditioned stimulus which elicits a particular response. An image or text can also be a conditioned stimulus but would not trigger a response as great as the actual item.

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Takeaways

People are willing to pay more for a product if it is in front of them.

Physical products are conditioned stimuli that trigger the brain more than pictures and text.