Use Familiar Measurement Units

A while back, researchers at Ghent University and Tilburg University asked consumers to compare the advantages of a seven-year warranty and a nine-year warranty on an item being purchased. To one group, the duration was stated as seven years compared to nine years. To another group, the identical duration was stated as 84 months compared to 108 months. Those consumers presented the months figures saw the difference between the warranties as larger than did the consumers hearing the comparison in years.
     A similar effect was seen with the measurements of a dining room table (inches versus feet) and merchandise delivery times (days versus weeks). The advice to retailers was that if you want to leave with the shopper the impression of higher magnitude, quote in smaller units. If you want to make things seem smaller, as with delivery time, quote in larger units.
     Then researchers at University of South Carolina and Virginia Tech verified an exception to the rule: Shoppers will consider a table “4 by 5 feet” to be larger than one “48 by 60 inches” if the shopper is considering making the purchase at some indefinite point in the future, not right now. Consumers who are gathering information for future use tend to process measurement information in terms of units rather than numbers. Feet are larger than inches.
     The South Carolina/Virginia researchers uncovered this effect not only with table sizes, but also with perceptions of the time of maturity of financial products, the weight of nutrients, and the height of buildings.
     And more recently, research findings from back at Ghent University suggest another refinement. I’ll call it the “Don’t Be Silly Rule for Giving Measurement Units.” Start describing dining room table dimensions in millimeters or talking about warranty lengths in hours, and your shoppers will consider this odd enough to think less of the retail offering overall. They might think it’s larger, but they won’t like it as much.
     When the shopper is focused on a particular dimension as highly important in the purchase, use a measurement unit the shopper is familiar with for that dimension.

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

Click below for more: 
Quote Measurement Units for Future Buys 
Treat Shopper Psychology as a Science