After reading the books Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely and Nudge by Thaler and Sustein, I found them to be very similar in many ways. I feel like Predictably Irrational could be some sort of prequel into Nudge, in the sense that it illustrated how people react to different situations while nudge showed us that ew can persuade people to do things based on these situations. For example, in the first chapter of Predictably Irrational, it talked about a company that made bread makers, they originally sold one product for $99. the product was doing terribly (people were like "why would I need a bread maker when I can just buy bread?") and they needed to do something about it. What this company did was sell a new, better, bread maker for $199. This caused the cheaper bread maker to sell more because it was put into perspective (now people were like "well this one's cheaper and affordable, why would I need such a fancy bread maker?"). Obviously, they were nudging people to buy the cheap one.
One significant idea from this book is that the supplier usually has power over the consumer in terms of asking price and value. Suppliers can and have taken advantage of the behavior of consumers given certain situations. People love free things (even if the product costs more, at least shipping is free, or even though I waited in line for two hours to get this ice cream at least it was free), people act different when aroused, people respond to "anchors" and so much more. My favorite example was when black pearls weren't selling at all, but when a merchant put them in the window next to diamonds and gems, they started to sell like crazy.
What I have taken away from these books is awareness and paranoia. Awareness when i'm out of the house and marketers are trying to nudge me one direction. Also I am paranoid (not to a crazy person level) that just about every large corporation knows how to get me to buy things. So I make a list and put my headphones in when grocery shopping.
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