Impact of Variety on Consumer Happiness: Marketing and the Tyranny of Freedom, The

Academy of Marketing Science Review, 2002

We included a box with the title "Hedonic/Utilitarian-Material/Experiential" to represent WHAT people consume. Relationship [3] indicates that the tendency for people to acquire material possessions as opposed to experiential "goods" influences their happiness with consumption. We include [7] to postulate that perhaps some experiential goods (such as travels) may have a main effect on SWB, as they are readily recalled in the evaluation of one's well being. Relationship [7] (and somehow [3]) has been studied by Van Boven (2000) and results seem to indicate that experiential purchases make people happier than material purchases. Relationship [5] indicates that marketing strategies influence consumers' tendency toward material and experiential purchases. For instance, some retailers focus on providing experiences for their customers (experiential marketing strategies presented in Schmitt 1999).

The box titled "maximization tendencies" relates to HOW people approach consumption and relates to their aims. Some people (or most on some occasions) will aim to get the "best" product to satisfy their need (maximize), while others will only aim to "satisfice" (a term suggested by Simon, 1976). Arrow [4] suggests that tendencies to maximize have an impact on consumer happiness. That is, maximizers can be less happy with their purchases [4] and in general [8] (as suggested in Schwartz et al. 2002). An integral part of the question of validity for [4] and [8] is the construal of expectations. Indeed, we shall discuss later on whether or not high expectations are part of maximization strategies or if they influence the choice of a strategy, as suggested by [6]. In other words, something (perhaps marketing strategies for [6] to hold) influences the expectations people have towards their purchase and directs them to a maximization strategy when their expectations are heightened. In reality, [6] may be empirically evidenced by online retailing (lower search costs lead to maximization) or provision of choice (expectation that one will find exactly what he/she is looking for) or by other means that lower search costs or influence expectations. The impact of search costs on acquisition strategy is articulated by Wieczorkowska and Burnstein (1999) who further hypothesize that there exists a trade-off between "means" and "ends" that can be under consideration (encoded) because of the limited capacity people possess.

More on the Interactive Effect of Marketing Strategies on SWB via Consumer Happiness In defining consumer happiness we extended the concept of consumer satisfaction (Day 1987) by including shopping experiences (with or without the intent to buy). The distinction is important since we see in the evidence of Iyengar and Lepper (2000) that people are attracted by large assortments and enjoy asserting their preferences within a large assortment, even though they may experience frustration and regret with a decision. Therefore, we do not want to assume that people assign more or less weight to the shopping experience as opposed to the consumption experience. Indeed, many people enjoy shopping as a hedonic activity. Shopping offers the pleasure of dreams, imagination and most importantly anticipation. This anticipation is part of the experience of consumption, and is even part of the marketing strategy of some marketers (a bicycle company makes people wait exactly two weeks for the delivery of a customized bicycle, even though the item could be delivered sooner). Whether consumers recall this anticipation and assign weight to it might influence their consumer happiness rating. If one limits or prompts to the evaluation of purchases only, then the mechanisms of adaptation may well have dimmed the quality of the consumption experience (see Kahneman). It is suggested that people will never enjoy a product as much as they anticipated because of the adaptation principle, hence consumers may not feel that their possessions made them as happy as they objectively did, in time.