Crazy Cat Woman

I’m just going to come right out and say it—I am a crazy cat woman. 

It’s taken me a while to accept this truth, but denial wasn’t getting me anywhere.

So that being said, my most important purchase this year was in January when I went to the Forsyth County Humane Society and bought two kittens.  This made me think about the buyer behavior process, and how my experience doesn’t quite match up with either the traditional or McKinsey’s consumer decision journey.

The journeys start off the same—first there is a touch point that makes the consumer (me) realize that they need something (kittens, of course).  My touch point occurred while I was abroad, and I realized how much I missed my pets.  Both buyer behavior models say that the first step involves considering an initial set of brands, which is then followed by more research of those brands that makes the consumer adjust their consideration set accordingly.  As a side note, it is generally a rule of thumb that the more important a purchase decision, the more effort or time the buyer will put into the process. For example, one would spend more time deciding what car to buy as opposed to what breakfast cereal (or I would hope).  Considering those facts, this is the part where things get tricky. 

I didn’t have a consideration set and I didn’t do any research.  I used to volunteer at the Forsyth Animal Shelter, so I immediately knew I would get my pets there.  I didn’t even make a decision during that step; I just knew that’s how it would be.  Prior to going to the shelter to pick out my kittens, I didn’t do any research.  You can’t exactly compare online reviews of kittens.  So there was no time spent in that part of the process either.  So here I am, about to make the most important purchase I have ever made, and I haven’t spent any time deciding what to buy.  Obviously that doesn’t quite match up with the whole more importance means more time idea. 

The traditional model suggests that a consumer goes into the point of purchase knowing what product they are going to buy.  Obviously that doesn’t apply in this situation.  I saw my kittens, played with them, and knew they were the ones I wanted.  The decision had been made in mere minute.  I think I spent more time picking out a pair of jeans online then I did choosing Coco and Dolce.  What’s even stranger is that you can normally return a purchased item if you’re not happy with it, but you can’t exactly return a kitten.  This meant that my decision was binding, and would affect my life for the next 15 or so years.  Wouldn’t that mean that I would spend more time in the decision making process?

How can such an important purchase go against all of the proven rules of buyer behavior?  My first thought was that maybe the importance of the purchase is more closely related to the cost of the item.  Buying a car is important, but it’s also very expensive.  Buying kittens is also very important, but surprisingly inexpensive (the going rate for kittens these days is pretty low).  But that doesn’t seem right to me—if a purchase is important wouldn’t the buyer spend more time deciding, no matter the cost?  

That’s when I realized what was different in my experience that isn’t accounted for in the models—emotions.  My entire decision was based on emotions.  I wanted a pet for emotional reasons and I picked them out for emotional reasons, not just because of their age or color or size.  So there it is, my big revelation.  When emotions are the number one deciding factor in a purchase, all of the rules tend to go out the window.  The point of purchase becomes the most important and influential step of the process.  Maybe this is just wrong, or maybe it has been discovered already, but I believe that this is a key consumer insight that should be used for marketing.  Obviously cats have personalities and most products don't, but if the emotional factor can be so strong that it influences the entire decision, there must be some way to increase the emotion at the point of purchase.


--Raquel Scharyj