Product information may incite consumers to buy recklessly

As a responsible consumer, you try to save energy and water, sort waste, and buy ecological products. One day, you’re browsing online stores and find a hoodie labeled eco-friendly. Aiming to be sustainable, you decide to buy the hoodie just because of its eco-label and you don’t research the product’s background. Just like that, you’ve bought a seemingly sustainable product impulsively.

“Recent studies have shown that green buying is not only something that is conscious and requires considerable cognitive efforts. It may also be habitual and impulsive. People may choose a responsibly manufactured tea as an impulse buy and realize back home that they already have five or six similar tea packages in the cupboard,” says Svetlana Obukhovich, junior researcher at LUT Business School.

Assistant Professor Jenni Sipilä notes that especially sustainable consumption often causes conflicting reactions in people.

"For example, many of us think that it’s a good thing to buy sustainable products but at the same time feel they are more expensive or have a worse selection than so-called normal products. Or we may think that recycling makes us feel better but also perceive recycling as a difficult or annoying chore”, says Sipilä.

Read more about the psychological mechanisms of green buying: https://www.lut.fi/en/articles/product-information-may-incite-consumers-buy-recklessly-and-spontaneously