Why and how retailers turn everyday items into ‘must-have’ collectables
In the wake of Coles’ Little Shop promotion, Louise and Martin Grimmer consider exactly what it is about collectables that makes them so appealing to consumers, in this crossposting from The Conversation.
Coles’ recent “Little Shop collectables” promotion has proved a hit with consumers, with entire sets of the toy products selling online for exorbitant prices.
This success is interesting given recent conversations and media coverage around plastic bag bans and reducing packaging in retailing. But campaigns such as these are linked with the psychology about why some of us love to collect and why some items become collectable.
Consumer behaviour theory explains that products become special, and therefore collectable, for a number of reasons including their symbolic value, mood-altering properties or instrumental importance.
I need the bananas… anyone? Pleeease?
This promo is a rip off what is an existing massive business – nothing original about it, unfortunately.