Predictably Irrational in the electronics store

Two things happened that led me to write this blog post.
One, I've just read (heard actually, through an Audible Audiobook) Dan Ariely's excellent book - Predictably Irrational http://www.predictablyirrational.com/.

Two, newly sensitized by that book, particularly about Relativity (not the Einstein variety, the common variety), my recent visit to an electronics store (Reliance Digital) was a nice eye opener on what retailers do to convince, confuse & corrupt us into buying what they want us to buy, rather than what we want to buy.

As I walked to the DVD player section of Reliance Digital, I was greeted by shelves full of DVD players from every manufacturer imaginable. The Sony's & Samsung's rubbed shoulders with the Onida's & Mitashi's. I was looking for a particular combination of features and specifically a Phillips DVD player (probably because I have one myself. NOTE: That would be Anchoring in Ariely's book).

The sales person came forward, heard my desired features list - DivX compatible, USB reader capability & HDMI output - and took me to the shelve that had two DVD players.

"This is the Philips DVD ", he said. "DivX compatible, reads USB & has HDMI out." I asked him the price and he mentioned what was well within the budget I had in mind.

"But this", he said, pointing at the DVD player next to the one he was showing me all this while, "is the Phillips DVD . All the features of the other model PLUS the glossy exterior finish, a FREE HDMI cable and picture Upscaling".

At this point, he was joined by another sales person. He repeated the glorious features of the second model and I found upon asking, that this 'advanced' model was pricier by a whole 67% when compared to the first model.

Then came the killer blow, the one Dan Ariely warns us against in the book.

The first sales person said - "It's only XXX.XX more than the less advanced model. Go for it. It's the best!"

What is happening here?

According to the book, the cheaper, less functional DVD player is a decoy. It's there to make the feature rich & more expensive DVD player look better as well as create a price point in your mind, what Ariely calls Arbitrary Coherance.
If the less functional DVD player is 5000 rupees for e.g. you would expect naturally that with the 'advanced glossy finish & the FREE HDMI cable' the more functional DVD player would be some what pricier.

The other thing that happens is that you compare the prices with each other, not individually. So, rather than think that you are about to spend 7000 rupees on a DVD player, you think you are going to spend "just 2000 rupees more than the less attractive mode". This allows you to rationalize the decision to pick the more expensive item.

So next time you are out shopping, consider how the items have been laid out before you. Try & pick the decoys and avoid buying something just because it has been placed next to a somewhat inferior version of itself and has smooth talking salesmen/saleswomen showing you just how little more you'd end up spending to get a 'superior' version!

Happy Shopping! :-)

Google Chrome OS - All the links you could possibly want

• Introducing Google Chrome OS [Official Google Blog]
• What does Google Chrome OS look like? [Youtube, official Google Chrome Channel]
• 5 Things Google Chrome OS will do, for your netbook [Wired Magazine]
• Will Google Chrome OS kill Windows? [Mashable]
• What Google Chrome OS means for netbooks, and why M$FT needs to be scared?[Crunchgear]
• Try Google Chrome OS yourself. Now. [Techcrunch]
• Google Chrome OS - The VMWare Image [gdgt]
• Gizmodo weigns in on Google Chrome OS [Gizmodo]
• Engadget weighs in on Google Chrome OS [Engadget]
• Ditch your hard drive, the future is the web [Wired Magazine]

Commute to Embassy Golf Links (EGL) from North Bangalore

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That took me over an hour to do. The stretch from Indiranagar BDA Complex to the turning to Indiranagar 80 feet road is full of potholes & pillars under construction for Namma Metro. The part from the end of 80 feet road where you turn right to get to 100 Feet Road is also time consuming, owing to heavy traffic through narrow, winding lanes.


Not a good strategy to follow at all. My commute time was 0905 - 1010 hrs. That is, by 1010 hrs, I was parked within EGL.


Here's what I did, on a whim, on the way back.






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This took much much lesser time. Starting at around 1745 hrs, I was home by around 1830 hrs.


Will be taking this route home from now on. If you live somewhere in North Bangalore or have to go that way one day, take this route. It's pretty nice, good roads.

The Long Tail of iPhone Apps

I recently read this article on how there are too many Apps in the iTunes App store and most of them are Crap.


This particular article is arguing that the actual barrier to entry for other smartphone App Marketplaces is much lower than Apple advertises it to be (some 100,000 apps in the iTunes App Store). This might be true, but I think the argument on which that conclusion is based, that is, their lament about most of the apps being crap, is not so sound.


Yes there are a lot of fart apps. Yes there are other apps that you or I may not find useful.
But lets not forget, what makes eBay auctions tick, what makes the iTunes Music Store tick, what makes (illegally, no doubt) peer-to-peer music downloads tick and what makes the Web in general tick is millions of people adding content that they think will be useful to others in their 'tribe'. 


Given that the content is digital, there is a low barrier to entry and consumers have infinite choice (as per The Long Tail of Marketing, Chris Anderson), so platforms that support this mass of niches are the ones that win.


Do you read all of the several million Google text ads? What makes you think they are all relevant to you? Does that mean, except for the ones that are relevant to you, all the rest are crap? :-) This simple analogy, when applied to Apps will show how the argument, that there's a lot of 'crap' in a marketplace is equal to that marketplace being doomed or useless, is flawed.


That even a control freak company like Apple has realized this in two markets - Music & Smartphone Apps is sure enough pointer that this is a way to keep from being relegated to the museum of technology. After all, Apple could have decreed, like they do in so many other areas that twenty Apps, all written by Apple would suffice for any user. They didn't. 


I don't know if we'll ever see this or not, but a graph of The number of apps sold/downloaded versus their unique rank in the iTunes App Store would make for fascinating analysis. I suspect that graph would look like a ... long tail.

A Little Revamp

Hoping to return to the blogging habit and so I started out with a simplification of the template. Hopefully this is more readable.