Why People Buy Things They Dont Need: Understanding and Predicting Consumer Behavior

Consumer purchases of entertainment products are highly dependent upon what properties are hot at the moment. Because they are far more faddish than other categories of products, like food and other consumables, we would expect to find significant ups and downs in purchase incidence of specific products from year to year—and we do!

For example, our 2003 purchase incidence survey was conducted while the latest Harry Potter book was on the best-seller list. As a result, books, magazines, and newsletters took over the top slot from prerecorded videos as the most purchased entertainment product category. On the other hand, in 2001, the last time the survey was conducted, prerecorded videos, music, and CDs were ranked number one. In 2003, purchase incidence of prerecorded media dropped sharply, from 79 percent in 2001 to 66 percent in 2003. This decline is an important issue for the record companies who claim that pirating of music from the Internet is the primary cause for lost revenue and decreased consumer purchase.

Among the 11 entertainment product categories included in the purchase incidence survey shown in Figure 7.1, only one product category shows significant growth in purchase incidence in 2003 over 2001 levels and that is sporting goods, up from 43 percent in 2001 to 48 percent in 2003. All the others are either about even or slightly behind purchase incidence in the 2001 sales year.

Let's take a closer look at each entertainment, recreation, and hobby product category through the rest of this chapter.