Is It Irresponsible Not To Buy From You?

Photo by Wicked Monday on Unsplash

When Amazon launched Prime back in 2005, Jeff Bezos’ central premise was that it should be “such a good value that you’d be irresponsible not to be a member”. This was when it offered 2 day free shipping. 

Now, of course, it offers a whole lot more and there are more than 200 million Prime members today. There are two takeaways from this.

First is that our concept of value needs to be from the consumer’s point of view, and it should represent such clear and tangible benefits that it becomes a ‘no-brainer’ to buy. The cost-benefit trade off should be immediate and enduring, both economically and psychologically. 

The second is that our concept of value has to evolve over time. Amazon didn’t simply stick to the original benefits offered, it continually added to it and expanded what was on offer. Some of this was to ward off the competition, but really it was to entrench the customer, to make sure that the cost to value tradeoff was never in question. 

It’s worth remembering that in our own work. 

If the value we are offering isn’t clear cut, if it needs to be carefully calculated, and if it needs to be elaborately justified in any way, we’ve already lost.  

But when the customer sees the impact right off the bat, when they perceive that it would be irresponsible not to buy from you, then we’re on the right path.