Retail Therapy: It’s A Question of Nature

In some ways ‘buying’ is one of the oldest behaviours we as a species possess. In the guttural instinctual under layers of Homo sapiens psyche it can be argued that we are still driven by a need to possess things in order to live. Every life form on the planet has this basic need – I remember watching a documentary on foxes narrated by the wonderful David Attenborough explaining that when a fox entered a chicken coop and killed all the chickens it wasn’t a random instinctual act of aggression but instead an opportunity to ‘make hay while the sun shined’, a fox would eat their fill but then take the rest of the chicken carcasses and bury them in strategic places so that in harder times it had a steady food source.

Even in such hard financial times as we face today it is perhaps difficult to contemplate that the majority of people on this planet don’t have the opportunity to possess all they need to live comfortably. Therefore, the act of buying for most is an act of therapy in itself by being able to provide for themselves and their family. For thousands of years we have toiled, fought and traded on the basis of being able to procure enough to feed and clothe ourselves. For thousands of years we, like the rest of nature’s animals have struggled with finding the resources to obtain what we need. Feeling good about buying something therefore is programmed into our very nature.

Only relatively recently with the industrial revolution, technological advancements in transport and refrigeration, have we been in a position where we have as a society been able to produce and earn more than our basic living needs require. That basic feeling of positivity when buying something is still there though. In the society that we are used to living in, where financial income far exceeds basic living we have a surplus of money that has fueled the increase in lifestyles we expect. Do we need absolutely everything we possess today? Of course not. We would feel bereft if we didn’t possess our cars, TV’s, ornaments, furniture etc. but most of these things are not, if we are honest, essential to our basic living requirements but rather are a product of our ability to buy what we ‘want’ rather than what we ‘need’.

For those of us selling, our products and services are purposely aimed at customers who have a combination of ‘want’ and/or ‘need’. Our jobs rely at some point on our ability to tap into the primordial therapeutic feeling of buying products based on one or both aspects. In a recession, the difficulty of selling ‘want’ based products is naturally more difficult as customers are more focused on ‘need’.

Yet, we live in a complex society that has also developed over thousands of years, and with society there is competition. Again, there are examples in nature where species that create society use property as a means to demonstrate their social standing. Those that demonstrate their ability to obtain the most resources are the most attractive. In our society, the same can be said. The most powerful members of society are the ones with the most property; they have the cars, the houses the absurdly younger spouses etc. In such cases their property isn’t based on ‘need’ at all but purely on ‘want’. They want to earn more, to have more power and to earn more respect. They don’t need even half of what they have, but by buying more they demonstrate their social standing. At the more mundane level of you and me, the term ‘keeping up with the jones’s’ is what drives some. Why? Because buying makes us feel good.

Feeling good about buying is built into our character whether it is based on buying through necessity or whim. For those in sales it is perhaps something to keep at the back of the mind when dealing with prospective customers that deep down there is a primordial urge to purchase and to feel good about doing so.

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