"Blind box fever", the contradiction between emotional satisfaction and irrational consumption

　　"Blind box fever", the contradiction between emotional satisfaction and irrational consumption

　　Author: drive and forest

[Bright Times Review]

　　Recently, the China Consumers Association issued a consumer reminder for the blind box market. It reminded the four major problems of excessive marketing by merchants, suspected false propaganda by merchants, difficulty in guaranteeing product quality, and difficulty in resolving consumer disputes in the current market, as well as related operations. In addition, we must work hard on the product itself, and don't blindly rub the marketing enthusiasm of the blind box, which has won the immediate benefits but lost the long-term reputation.

　　If you pay attention, we can find that in many shopping malls, transportation hubs and other places, traditional vending machines no longer put ordinary goods, but a variety of boxes.

Not only that, the goods in the box have changed from the bubble Mart doll blind box at the beginning to now more and more types, including mobile phones, toys, beauty and so on.

Many people may think that the blind box is a kind of gambling behavior, which completely exploits the gambler psychology of consumers and does not agree with the blind box economy.

However, it should be noted that the current blind box economy needs to be differentiated. One is the blind box for collecting dolls, and the other is the blind box for commodities. For the former, it is necessary to recognize the emotional rationality and irrationality of consumption. For the latter, we must realize that there is a serious information asymmetry problem.

　　In fact, only the first of the four main problems pointed out by the China Consumers Association involves consumer psychology. Its purpose is not all to deny, but to call for a rational consumption. The remaining three problems all involve the product itself.

Therefore, it can also be seen that the China Consumers Association is more concerned about the market chaos caused by the blind box heat, rather than the blind box itself.

In August 2019, an organization released the "Post-95 Players Chopping List" showing that every year 200,000 consumers spend more than 20,000 yuan on blind boxes per year, and some consumers even spend millions of dollars a year. Yuan to buy blind boxes.

From the data point of view, the group of players in the blind box is not large. Therefore, on the whole, many people do not understand the psychology of consuming the blind box.

　　Buying blind boxes is emotionally rational and consumption irrational. For the younger generation of consumers, paying for emotions has become the main consumer psychology.

At present, for consumers, the use value and emotional value brought by a product are gradually separated. The consumption concept of the younger generation determines that they pay more attention to the emotional value of a product. The cute baby in the blind box gives the "family "Sense", the "sense of accomplishment" brought by blind box collection and the "sense of belonging" brought by blind box socialization are the main motivations for consumers to consume blind boxes.

　　However, emotional rationality is accompanied by irrational consumption. Many consumers have the concept of "gambler's fallacy". The so-called "gambler's fallacy" is the assumption that the probability of an event in a random sequence is related to the previous event. , That is, the probability of its occurrence will increase with the number of times the event has not occurred before.

If you buy a blind box, if you haven't bought it before, the probability of buying it next time will increase.

From a rational point of view, we certainly know that every purchase is independent of each other, but for consumers at the time of purchase, the gambling psychology will be strengthened by the "gambler's fallacy", thus impulsive consumption.

　　Merchants are taking advantage of such a contradiction between emotional and consumer psychology to harvest consumers' wallets.

Many people may say that the blind box economy is justified, but it is not.

The problem of the blind box economy lies in the gameplay, because consumers and law enforcement agencies do not know the probability of certain dolls, which leads to information asymmetry. The company fully grasps the probability of production and the company has a similar pricing in a monopoly market Right, in this way, companies can squeeze out all the consumption surplus of consumers buying blind boxes according to the characteristics of consumers.

　　Blind commodity boxes are different from dolls in that they do not have strong emotional value, but commodity blind boxes are often marketed at low prices, which inspires consumers' gambling psychology, and the information asymmetry of commodity blind boxes is more serious , It lacks the long-term profit orientation of the enterprise, so it generally holds the thinking of making quick money.

Under the marketing orientation of making quick money, product quality problems are easy to accompany, especially as the blind box economy shifts from offline to online, as the difficulty of consumer rights protection becomes greater, some businesses are encouraged to sell counterfeit products. product.

　　Therefore, the China Consumers Association’s prompts are very timely. The standardization of blind box economy should work hard on consumer persuasion, especially for commodity blind boxes. Do not be confused by low-price marketing blind boxes when purchasing products that value use value.

However, for blind boxes with collectible and scarce commodities, the role of persuasion may be limited. More attention should be paid to standardizing the gameplay, especially for probability, and the probability of production should not be adjusted by the company at will.

At the same time, adequate attention should be paid to violations of laws and regulations in product production and sales, to reduce the cost of consumer rights protection, broaden the channels for consumer rights protection, and increase the cost of violations.

(Author: drive and Lin, Department of Zhongnan University of Economics Executive President of the Digital Economy Research Institute, Professor)