How Do Salespeople Influence Purchases? - Assignment 4

My most recent assignment was to interact with the general public and carry out interviews with people that I had never met before. I would be carrying out these interviews with ‘ordinary’ people to find out their thoughts and attitudes towards a specific area of design that I had chosen. I prepared 15 questions for each person relating to how they felt about salespeople, as the question that I was trying to answer was ‘How do salespeople influence purchases?’. However, I wasn’t allowed to directly ask this question; I had to become a ‘detective’ as I knew people probably wouldn’t openly admit to being influenced by anything/anyone. Then once I had carried out my interviews and collected all the information I needed it was up to me to delve into their responses and try to discover discrepancies or running themes within them. This in turn would allow me to answer my question.

The 15 questions that each person was asked are as follows:

1. How do you decide what brand of product is best when you go to buy an item?

2. How do you decide what price range or budget you should stay within when purchasing something?

3. Do you generally ask for advice in shops from members of staff? Explain.

4. When you enter a shop and are looking around is there anything you notice?

5. What irritates you when you are shopping in a store such as PC World or Currys? Explain.

6. Does anything please you when you are shopping in a store such as PC World or Currys? Explain.

7. When purchasing expensive items such as laptops, cameras, TV’s, how much research would you do?

8. When purchasing your most recent car, what factors contributed most when choosing that model?

9. What are your thoughts on shopping channels?

10. What kind of impression do the presenters of shopping channels give? E.g. about things they are selling.

11. What is the most recent thing you bought? Did anyone advise you when shopping?

12. Are you easily persuaded into buying something? What are your reasons for this? Who would influence you most?

13. When choosing an expensive item to purchase who/what is your biggest source of knowledge? Do you trust this source?

14. How useful do you find staff in places selling more expensive items such as TV’s and computers?

15. When you are speaking to a salesperson what do you notice about the language they use? How does this make you feel?

Each person was also given a page with following images on it and asked to explain what each of them meant to them.

After collaborating all of my research together and reading through each of the interviews again a few patterns emerged but the majority of the answers were not out of the ordinary. Those who were bringing a large income into their home and didn’t have any financial commitments such as children tended not to do much product research and would ask salespeople for help when purchasing an item. However, this generally wasn’t for specifications or information about a product it was usually to find out which product was “in fashion”, “the best” or “most popular” at the time. This giving me the impression that because they can afford the latest items, they aren’t too concerned with the shelf life of a product, as they can easily replace the item or upgrade it. What this shows is that salespeople are involved with the purchase of goods even when they are considered to be relatively unimportant to the customer.

In the contrary, those who had a family or were of a younger generation would research a product thoroughly before purchasing through asking friends and family, searching the internet and reading a vast number of customer reviews. So due to either not having a lot of money to spend or having other financial commitments they tended be more aware of the fact that they cannot chance buying a product that isn’t right for them. This meant that when they entered into stores to buy the product they knew they wanted salespeople were classed as “irritating” and “annoying” as they didn’t really have any need for them.

Another theme that was presented to me from across the spectrum of ages was that salespeople in shops, such as PC World, tended to use a different language when speaking to their customers. This was ironic, in the fact that most people said they would generally only ask for help in shops that sold technical goods. Despite this, it was in these shops that salespeople tended to use a language that the everyday person couldn’t understand. If a salesperson is condescending, doesn’t give the information required or doesn’t directly answer the questions they are asked, people are put off and left confused. Revealing to me, that if a customer is confused or not spoken to properly they lose interest not only in the product but in the salesperson and would tend not to buy anything. In saying this, most people do find these salespeople rather helpful and admitted that “if they sounded knowledgeable I would be more likely to buy what they recommended” or “if they are enthusiastic about a product it would persuade me to purchase it”. Another factor that contributes to a sale is if a salesperson uses their formal language “correctly”. Referring to their customer as ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’ as this “makes you feel important” and therefore made people listen to them and believe that they had their best interests in mind when recommending products. Instantly this shows that salespeople influence purchases and are a direct link between customers and sales.

The results that I received from showing people the page with the images on it were rather similar and revealed what I had expected. The picture of the clothes shop was instantly classed with “not as much help on hand” but it was also said that this was not a bad thing as “you got time to browse in peace”. These are also classed as shops that you don’t require help in as you know what you want and like; therefore salespeople are not required. However, when asked to describe the image of the mobile phone shop it was immediately voiced that salespeople here “pounce on you as soon as you enter the shop” and are “irritating”. When asked why this was so irritating people said it was because they wanted to browse in peace or generally knew what mobile phone they wanted and therefore didn’t wish to be persuaded into buying something they didn’t need.

In conclusion, it is easy to see that people either find salespeople extremely helpful or a nuisance. It also shows that the way in which salespeople are perceived depends entirely on the type of shop and the products that they are selling.