I saw an interesting post on Facebook -- an invoice for the largest amount that the poster has ever received.
It was for a million dollar house. The person emphasized how excited she really was about the amount, not necessarily about the quality of the property. Not many people can afford to buy a house at that price, so the poster would have wanted to brag about it.
That's quite intriguing. The last thing I want to receive is an invoice; the more expensive, the less welcome. But some people appear to be willing to pay high prices for the sake of them.
That reminded me of the placebo effect. Quite a few patients do feel better after taking a sugar or flour pill which they believe to be real medicine.
A one million dollar house should be good quality, but if its price had been half that, the poster might not have been as enthusiastic. Similarly, shoppers value a Chanel jacket because it costs $10,000; If the price were $100 for the same jacket, they may not even take a second glance.
This phenomenon is prevalent among other products. My hairdryer recently broke, so I looked around for a new one. The most expensive hairdryer was $540 -- this high-tech product was developed using quantum mechanics and reviewers claim it is amazingly effective at straightening curly hair.
Beginning with a 2D model, this dryer has been upgraded to 4D plus so far. My hairdresser used this series, but admitted that there was almost no difference between 2D and 3D. He even advised that my hairdryer at that time, the first model of Panasonic's nanocare series, should be sufficient. It was about $130, half the price of 2D ($260).
If you examine many consumer reviews, you will find some make a similar point. They regret buying an upgraded model which was almost the same as a previous one. At the same time, many other people rave about the latest and most expensive one and stress what they purchased was the best.
Probably people may want to believe that they made the right choice, whatever it was, and therefore are happy. Otherwise, they might have made a wrong decision, and for that reason they might be miserable.
All things considered, best cost performance does exist. But it takes most careful and cool-headed consideration to discover such a product.
