Skip to main content

Human Nature

Tyler Cowen's post on the economics of snowstorm shopping  and the comments to it make for very interesting reading. All commentors do not agree with Cowen's reasoning of why Eggo waffles would fly off the shelves, much faster than less known brands in the event of a snowstorm. One argument is the vendors stock the stores independently and it may just be a logistics issue that prevents them from replenishing supplies in a severe weather situation. Another one is that people stuck indoors might be missing on eating out and to compensate may spend on higher end groceries than they might otherwise have. 

The same outcome but so many different hypothesis and each is a good, reasonable one. Such are the challenges of trying to fathom human nature and use such understanding to turn in a profit.  That might explain why Macy's continues to send me brochures, discount cards and such when in fact I shop no more than a couple of times in year (if at all) at that store. By some analyst's estimation I must fit the profile of the kind of shopper they seek. They could not be further off the mark. Each time, I see something from Macy's in my mailbox I wonder why they continue to waste their time and resources on one such as myself.

Likewise if Eggos were to try and glean insights into customer behavior - year round and seasonally (as in a snowstorm), they may end up trying to push their waffles to those who like them least.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t

Cheese Making

I never fail to remind J that there is a time and place for everything. It is possibly the line she will remember me by when I am dead and gone given how frequently she hears it. Instead of having her breakfast she will break into a song and dance number from High School Musical well past eight on Monday morning. She will insist that I watch and applaud the performance instead of screaming at her to finish her milk and cereal. Her sense of occasion is seriously lacking but then so is mine. Consider for example, a person walks into the grocery store with the express purpose of buying detergent because they are fresh out of it and laundry is only half way done. However instead of heading straight for detergent, they wander over to the natural foods aisle and go berserk upon finding goat milk on sale for a dollar a gallon. They at once proceed to stock pile so they can turn it to huge quantities home-made feta cheese. That person would be me. It would not concern me in the least that I ha

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques