Behavioural Biases That Influence What We Buy 🔗

Introduction

Consumer decisions in these complex situations are likely to be biased. Belief-based biases, for example, arise when uncertainty is involved in decisions. For instance, consumers could form incorrect beliefs about their future behaviour and the market environment (e.g., developments in technology or regulation). Applied to the automotive industry, consumers might want to avoid ambiguity concerning their monthly bills and prefer purchasing a car. However, consumers' overconfidence could also lead them to underestimate their actual car usage, leading them to choose the allegedly cheaper car-sharing option. Apart from the decision between access and ownership, behavioural biases could also help explain consumer behaviour in sharing services—the impact of bias on decision making in our daily life. Hence, the concept of bias must be learnt among all professionals regardless of the profession.