Every book, every article, every piece of material that sets out to explain or standardize consumer behavior is actually contributing to the conversation, which never really ends.
This is because consumer behavior is constantly changing, even more so today, when new technologies emerge all the time, each one bringing with it the possibility of changing the way consumption itself happens.
And as consumption habits change, consumers change along with them.
Today I have put together a list of books suggested by our team, each of which addresses a facet of consumer behavior and, consequently, the market.
Starting now:
1 - The Long Tail - Chris Anderson
This is one of the main books about the economy of usa email database abundance that we are (in a way) living in, and it explores a lot about how consumers, in general, see this abundance.
The book begins in the 19th century, exemplifying, through the Sears business model at the time of product deliveries via railroad, how a large number of options increases the sales of any retail company.
According to Anderson, the best way to reach new markets is by increasing the portfolio of available products.
This is what he calls the Long Tail. Let's say you are a store that sells 3 products. One of them is responsible for 80% of your sales, while the other two are responsible for 20% of them.
This is, in fact, determined by the Pareto Principle.
What Chris Anderson determines is that consumer behavior changes when your portfolio is large enough.
Sales are diluted across the products you offer, maintaining the 80/20 ratio, but with more evenly distributed numbers.
For example: with three products, you would receive R$100,000 per month, of which R$80,000 would be for the main product alone.
By offering more products, the main company stops selling R$80,000 and starts selling R$40,000. But these other R$40,000 lost will be distributed across its expanded portfolio.
In other words: you don't lose anything and you also gain more security in sales, without depending on a single product.
This is one of the most important books for understanding consumer behavior in practice, seeking to relate it to the sales you make and the products you offer.
Along the same lines, another book is extremely important to study. More about it below:
2 - Blue Ocean Strategy — W. Chan Kim
Still on the subject of markets, “Blue Ocean Strategy” goes a little further than the Long Tail when it comes to opening new markets.
But this opening is not so much related to the products you sell and their impact on your sales. In fact, the main concept of the book is related to competition.
But this competition is very, very related to consumer behavior.
The main point the book makes about the consumer specifically is the differentiation between red oceans and blue oceans.
The red ocean is a saturated market, where customers already have their consumption preferences, and where transforming these preferences, although possible, is still very costly.
Take the taxi industry, for example. You can create a new cooperative and compete with others that have been in the market for decades. Or you can create an app-based service and go to another part of the world — where the ocean is blue.
That's what Uber did, in this example.
This book is essential to understanding product development in the times we live in today. It is available on Amazon.
3 - A Book About Innocent
This is a slightly more cult recommendation , moving away from the masterpieces of market analysis and analyzing a single brand and its relationship with consumers.
“A Book About Innocent” is, as the name suggests, a book about Innocent, one of the first food startups in the world, acquired by Coca-Cola in the middle of the last decade.
Innocent is a smoothie company that used the Blue Ocean strategy to offer incredible value to its customers: the guarantee of freshly squeezed juices.
The first part of the book talks about how the company was created and the challenges of delivering this product.
And the challenges are immense — producing and packaging the product on the same day it is sold? That is a strategy for restaurants and snack bars. Not for those who sell in bulk at retail.
But in the second part, the book addresses how Innocent talks to its customer base, how it keeps this base loyal and how it wins new brand evangelists.
Ultimately, the book is mainly about consumer loyalty, which is an extremely important aspect for a complete understanding of consumer behavior.
The book is available in English on Amazon, for import, or on Kindle.
4 - The Logic of Consumption — Martin Lindstrom
This is the book that comes closest to a general theory of why we buy.
And the interesting thing is its subtitle: truths and lies about why we buy. It makes its intention clear right at the beginning — in fact, before it does.
Throughout the book, the author brings up several myths about marketing and advertising and debunks them one by one, trying to understand what really leads consumers to buy.
The book focuses on the manipulation of traditional advertising. The criticism of the iconization of marketing and brands is so fierce in this book that on many occasions it makes direct comparisons to religion and even to despots who use the figure of the charismatic leader.
The book is short but packed with information. For anyone looking for an interesting starting point on consumer behavior, “The Logic of Consumption” is a great recommendation.
You can buy it directly from Amazon.
5 - Peers Inc. — Robin Chase
This reading fits very well with “Blue Ocean Strategy”, being a slightly more current version of the ideas proposed by Kim.
Peers Inc. is a book that deals mainly with the new relationship between consumers and corporations. According to Chase, this relationship has been guiding and building the new capitalism.
The book understands that consumers are no longer used to being just consumers. Now, brands are part of their lives, and they are part of the brand too.
“They” are not. We are.
The book is essential reading for anyone who enjoys books and theories about consumer behavior, and is one of the most important in this contemporary phase of business literature.
It's definitely worth reading. Among all the ones we've analyzed here, this is the only one that talks about the collaborative economy, which is this different way of thinking about capitalism.