Balancing Innovation and Buyer Resistance:
As a product manager, I would balance innovation and buyer resistance by prioritizing features that not only add clear value to the customer’s lives but ones that are actively desired by the customer. As Gourville notes, “Consumers fail to buy innovative products even when they offer distinct improvements over existing ones.” Given that new products require consumers to change their behaviors, product managers must ensure that their product is something that consumers have expressed a willingness to adopt. To test this, it’s crucial to employ beta-testing and gradual rollouts of the product to gather data and consumer reviews before the final iteration. By doing so, product managers can analyze the flaws of the product, consumer complaints, and consumer desires.
Loss Aversion and Buyer Resistance:
Gourville defines “loss aversion” as the phenomenon of losses having a “far greater impact on people than similarly sized gains.” This phenomenon is directly correlated with buyer resistance as consumers will be more wary of purchasing a product and incurring a loss than they will be willing to purchase an item and possibly incur a small upgrade to their quality of life. To overcome this, product managers should emphasize the significant upgrades their products will provide, showing how their product far outweighs the potential losses. By demonstrating how new features will save substantial amounts of time and money in the long run, product managers can sway consumers to be more likely to adopt their product. To dissuade the notion of loss aversion, the company can also provide return guarantees and warranties, thereby allowing consumers to reduce their risk from buying the product and allowing them to personally experience the benefits the product provides. However, beyond monetary losses, Gourville also notes that consumers view trade-offs and behavior changes as psychological losses. To combat this, companies can offer free trials that allow consumers to gradually integrate products into their lives with less buyer resistance.
Feature Creep and Product Development:
Feature creep occurs when too many features are added to a product, thereby undermining its original purpose or value. This can negatively impact product development as it overburdens the development team, slowing down the development cycle and forcing them to create new features that are not beneficial to the company and are not desired by the consumer. It can further complicate the product, making it harder to use and less intuitive. To avoid this, companies can be intentional about the features they add by comparing every new feature to their product’s goal and ensuring that it helps reach it. By regularly reassessing the product’s new features, the product team can also ensure that only essential, value-adding features are added to the product.
