Delay Negative Stereotypes to Post-Experience

Most of the time, shoppers carry into a store with them one or another preconception about characteristics of products. For instance, a shopper might believe:

• Chocolate candies that carry a higher price taste better than inexpensive chocolates
• Wines produced in Italy taste better than wines produced in India

     Researchers at Babson College refer to these preconceptions as “stereotypes.” The researchers go on to remind us how, with products like chocolates and wines, the shopper’s own individual sensual experiences really should carry more importance than rigid stereotypes.
     But often they don’t. The researchers asked shoppers at a Boston-area liquor store to sip a wine, then give their judgment of the quality. Some of the study participants were told the wine was from Italy, while others were told the wine was from India.
     The timing of the country-of-origin information determined how the stereotype operated, and in that fact resides the advice for retailers: If the wine-taster was given the country-of-origin information before the sip, those tasting the “Italian” wine rated the product as having higher quality than those tasting the wine from “India.” If the information was given after the sip, the results were reversed: Those who had sipped the “Italian” wine gave lower ratings to the quality on average than those getting the wine from the same bottle, but told it was from India.
     It was as if the consumer who had enjoyed the experience went overboard in fighting against the common stereotype—at least among Boston residents—about Italian and Indian wines.
     The researchers found parallel results with studies involving chocolates being identified as coming from either Switzerland or China, playing on the stereotype of Swiss chocolate being superior, and involving candies being identified as either expensive or inexpensive.
     Sometimes you’ll choose to maintain the stereotype. For example, the price-quality link helps shoppers make sense of your store policies, and the truth is that, in general, more expensive products in a particular category usually are of higher quality. So if you sell candies, there are advantages in preserving the belief that chocolates which carry a higher price taste better than chocolates which are inexpensive.
     However, there are circumstances where the stereotype distorts the experience for the consumer in ways that are not to the benefit of you or the consumer. In these circumstances, withhold information about that attribute of the product until after the consumer has gotten a taste.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

Click below for more:
Feature Country-of-Origin Advantages
Guide Choice by Sequence of Presentation
Condition Your Customers

(This posting is a redo of the original. I’m grateful to my colleague Peter Laudin, owner of The Pattycake Doll Company, for pointing out that my original version was excessively difficult to understand.)