Analysis Of The 11 Ways That Consumers Are Hopeless At Math By Derrick Thompson

In the article, "The 11 Ways That Consumers Are Hopeless at Math", Derrick Thompson discusses about everyday consumer retail psychology. More specifically, how everyday consumers get fooled or tricked by businesses to get us to spend more or receive less leading to an increase in their profit margin. The author mainly talks about how everyday consumers are fooled due to the cold fact that they do not know the actual buying cost of the products or services. Branding products and advertising both increases the retail price of the product or service, therefore the consumer do not know whats the actual value of it. At the end of the article, the author claims, "the shopping brain uses only what is knowable: visual clues, triggered emotions, comparisons,

The main points Thompson uses to support his arguments are examples of scenarios everyday consumers go through. He, in the beginning of the article, discussed about how everyday consumers love the idea of hearing the term, "free", in a deal or package. The Starbucks drink has two deals 33% off or 33% extra coffee. The first deal would cost twenty-two cents per quart, and twenty-five cents per quart for the second deal. He argued that consumers are more likely to go for the deal with the "free" concept, because not a majority of people calculate their spendings towards this scale. They love hearing the word, "free" and would go with it. This scenario is one of the many Thompson provided. The scenarios are every consumer examples that show how they spend money and how businesses do their best to stay winning. He talked about restaurants putting the dish with the most profit-margin where consumers are likely to look at first in the menu. He also discussed about how consumers spend more when they are drunk or under some sort of influence. These examples only strengthen Thompson's position and it helps the audience understand what he is trying to explain, because they have most likely been in that position as

It is due to them not knowing the true value of things. He strengthened this claim multiple times using the examples and scenarios he provided throughout the article. This only helped strengthened his claim more, because, most scenarios implied that if the consumer knew the true value, he or she would make the decision to benefit himself or herself heavily. However, that is not the case. Overall, Thompson does make a convincing argument using these real life scenarios, because a majority of readers would be in a position like that as well. Due to the readers being able relate, a connection of trust and persuasion is created between the author and the audience. Therefore, Thompson's arguments and claims are very convincing and provide enough evidence to the extent where the reader is comfortable reading and trusting