Psychology of Selling and Marketing
The psychological trap of checking reviews after you buy
A new study finds that reading bad reviews before trying a product actually makes the experience worse, while positive reviews offer no matching boost.
Customer-created shelf gaps reduce purchase intentions
When previous shoppers leave visible gaps between products on a retail shelf, subsequent consumers often view the remaining items as defective leftovers, initiating a psychological chain of events that reduces overall sales.
The minute-by-minute mechanics of live-stream sales
A minute-by-minute analysis of nearly 3,000 live-stream broadcasts reveals how consumer engagement and sales feed off one another in real time, offering a precise window for maximizing retail revenue.
Chatbots outperform traditional landing pages in business-to-business lead generation
A new study comparing digital sales tools found that conversational chatbots generated up to 500 percent more business-to-business leads than traditional web forms, driven by user preferences for speed, perceived customization, and platform security.
Why highly adaptable business clients aren’t always the most satisfied
A new study explores what happens when business-to-business buyers must change their internal processes to implement customized solutions. The findings reveal that while adapting fosters long-term commitment, it can sometimes dampen a buyer's immediate satisfaction.
When edgy brands meet manipulative consumers: The backfire effect of dark personalities
A new study finds that consumers who possess manipulative and self-serving personality traits are more likely to seek revenge against brands that behave the exact same way.
How extraordinary experiences and personality traits shape emotional brand attachment
New research shows that extraordinary experiences build stronger emotional brand attachment than ordinary routines. However, this effect relies on a consumer's personality, working effectively for introverts but failing to translate into brand loyalty for highly extroverted individuals.
What Chinese beauty influencers reveal about the limits of the Silicon Valley playbook
A five-year study of Chinese male beauty influencers finds they reshape ideas about masculinity and beauty without the diversity language, or the structural battles, common among Western creators, suggesting the "influencer" model is not universal.
People prefer prizes that could have been worse, study finds
Seven experiments with 12,000 participants show people prefer prizes that emerged from uncertainty over identical prizes given outright, apparently because mystery draws prompt mental comparisons to worse alternatives that could have happened.
How generative AI is changing the volume and tone of consumer reviews
When Italy briefly banned ChatGPT in 2023, researchers used the four-week outage to measure how AI tools change online reviews. The result: fewer, shorter, less opinionated hotel reviews when the tool went away.