15A Figuring Out Buying Behavior No. 2

Merlin is in her twenties and in a steady relationship and has been for as long as I’ve known her for 3 years. She is just approaching my segment, as she will be approaching marriage and parenthood soon. She likes to play online games and looks for new games to buy online first before proceeding to find them locally. If she cannot find them locally, she will just buy them online. She said she knows if she made the right purchase if the game doesn’t make her angry, is what it was advertised to be, and is reliable. She knows she made a mistake if it makes her angry while playing, isn’t a format she likes to use, or if it is other than what it was advertised to be.

My boss, Chris always researches items of all kinds online. Not only does he find the product, he compares them, and finds the comparable item that he needs or wants for less money. He knows he made a wise buying decision when the product works as it should holds up as it should and the cost is reasonable for him to repeat purchase. He is in my segment because he recently had a mom who had fallen and broke her neck during the fall. Had she had a sensor on, he could have found her sooner. She laid there for 24 hours before his sister went over to her house when his mom didn’t respond to a phone call. Now he has an aunt that has fallen and awoke disoriented and is still in that state. She may have had a stroke, but he had to come in to work for a while. Having a monitoring system with him at all times and allowing her to wear a sensor bracelet would be ideal right now.

Jashira answered the question of whether she buys online or in a store with, “It depends on what it is. If I can find it in a store I’ll shop online, or if I discover something I want in a store, then I’ll buy it there. If I seek something in particular and don’t know where to buy it, I’ll look it up online." Jashira is in my segment because she has three young children and one of them was sick with the flu this week. The sensor would have helped her monitor her little girl's fever while at home. 

In Summary: 

My subjects mostly like to look products up online if they don’t already know where to purchase them. They seek them out if they need to. They will, however, buy locally if they can find the product nearby since that saves them shipping fees and they can have it immediately. On the other hand, they will buy a product if they see it for the first time in a store. If there is enough convincing evidence about it's reliability, overall quality, and guarantee it will work. If they see one in a store, they may think about it for a while depending on the price, research it, then return to buy. 

My product, For Kid’s Sake, is not known, so no one would know to seek it out. It would have to have lots of promotion and sales efforts in order to get the word out that it is not just helpful to have but essential in so many cases. It could otherwise be in stores, like Target, with advertising to explain what it does and show instances of it’s worth and uses. One point to make is that the sensor could be passed from one person to another as needed, so the uses would be even greater than I first thought. This week, I kid you not, there were three cases of parents who had to leave work early or miss the entire day because their child was sick with the flu. Brenda, Erica, and Jashira all had children with nausea, chills, and high fevers this week with Erica taking her child to the hospital last night. Erica was at work today while her husband was home with her son, but if she had the sensor app, she would have piece of mind while his temperature stayed down during the day today.

Final Thought: 

I need to work on the name of the product since it hasn't been launched yet. For Kids Sake sounds like it is just for kids. It, however, covers so much more. It covers the elderly who are often in fragile states, covers normal persons who are really ill, and of course children and babies since they are helpless to some degree, etc. I was thinking (if they’re not already taken) of calling it something like Health Angel, Guardian Angel, Health Monitor, Safe and Sound, Piece of Mind, or Health Guardian. What do you think?