Re: Kindle customer comment from MobileRead forum

--- In [email protected], "John Landahl" <jlandahl@...>
wrote:
>
> Interesting suggestion about the post-purchase dissonance, Kent, but
that feeling (I think 
> feeling is more accurate than trait here), at least as the term is
used in marketing, is 
> usually associated with irrevocable commitments to buy big
big-ticket items like a house 
> (where it's also known to realtors as buyer's remorse), a car, and
so forth. 
> 

Well, yes, but in my experience  (anecdotal, I know), is that it
happens to a lesser degree with lower-dollar purchases.

I don't have data to back this up, but what is interesting to me is
the degree to which I see people defend what appear to be poor purchases.

Please note, I'm not referring so much to the actual dissonance, as to
the tendency to defend the purchase and convince others that it was
the best decision, often despite rational reasons to doubt.

>
>  I'm not sure a $400 Kindle with no long-term service contract
returnable within 30 days 
> really qualifies as a significant, irrevocable purchase requiring a
lot of effort at 
> psychological justification for people who are in the habit of
buying Sony Readers, 
> iPhones, Blackberries, etc..   
>

To you, perhaps. My own basic tendency is to worry about purchases,
and I know that I would feel som dissonance if a $400 purchase turned
out to not have been a good purchase. If I found another merchant had
the same $400 item I purchased for more than $50 less, I'd be rather
put out, to be honest.

> 
> And the usual prescription for avoiding post-purchase dissonance is
to research your 
> purchase carefully before making it to avoid those unpleasant
surprises that are the 
> source of the dissonance.  Contributors to the MobileRead forums are
ebook enthusiasts 
> who love to debate (sometimes congenially, sometimes heatedly) the
relative merits of 
> ebook reading devices including the Sony Reader 500 and 505, the
Cybook, and the ILiad, 
> not to mention the issues of DRM, PDF, etc., that are so often the
subject of comments in 
> this group.  Fore example, one MobileRead E-Book Devices forum is
entitled "Which one 
> should I buy?"
> 
> The contributors to the MobileRead forums are generally
technology-savvy early adopters 
> who don't seem at all hesitant to complain about dissatisfactions
with devices they've just 
> spent hundreds of dollars to buy, perhaps indicating their
concurrence with a philosophy 
> you alluded to in an earlier post, namely that complaints will
pressure manufacturers to 
> improve their products.
> 
> John
> 

Sorry, but I'm not sure where the MobileRead E-Book Devices forum
comes into this. I thought that we were discussing reviews that
appeared on Amazon!

My comments weren't meant as a reaction to reviews in a sophisticated
form, but to reviews in general, especially among unsophsisticated
purchasers

Regardless, don't take my comments as gospel -- all I meant was to
give a possible explanation for some reviews that might seem
excessive.  As always, use judgement when you read reviews from consumers.

Kent





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