---
title: "Why Isn't Your Product Selling? A Consumer-Centric Perspective"
description: "This article explains why products fail to sell by examining consumer behavior through the Fogg Behavior Model and emphasizing the importance of understanding consumer needs. It advises marketers to view products from the consumer's perspective, focusing on motivation, ability, and triggers, and to conduct deep consumer insights to uncover real demands."
author: "高级研究员 海游"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2022-09-01"
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# Why Isn't Your Product Selling? A Consumer-Centric Perspective

> This article explains why products fail to sell by examining consumer behavior through the Fogg Behavior Model and emphasizing the importance of understanding consumer needs. It advises marketers to view products from the consumer's perspective, focusing on motivation, ability, and triggers, and to conduct deep consumer insights to uncover real demands.

**01** **Understanding Consumer Purchase Behavior through the Fogg Behavior Model**
The Fogg Behavior Model posits that behavior occurs when three elements converge: motivation, ability, and triggers. Simplified as B=MAT, where B is Behavior, M is Motivation, A is Ability, and T is Triggers. For a behavior to happen, the individual must have sufficient motivation and ability; when both are present, they will act upon being prompted or triggered.
Let's analyze a case: Today, I saw a multi-point display of Zilin vinegar in a store:
This is a typical category-related display. Do you think the vinegar sales will be good?
First, to be clear, achieving this already scores 80 points; category association promotes product sales. However, there is room for improvement. Let's analyze using the Fogg Behavior Model:
**Consumer Purchase Behavior = Consumer Purchase Motivation * Consumer Purchase Ability * Consumer Triggers**
**1. Consumer Purchase Motivation:**
Buying vinegar to dip dumplings is a Chinese consumption habit, fitting the consumption scenario and easily forming category association. Thus, placing vinegar next to dumplings easily creates purchase motivation.
**2. Consumer Purchase Ability:**
Purchase ability doesn't mean whether consumers can afford vinegar, but rather that in most consumers' minds, dumplings are the main event, and vinegar is a condiment for dipping. There is a primary-secondary distinction. That is, the price of vinegar should not exceed that of dumplings, or ideally, be about one-third of the dumpling price. This is the purchase ability ordinary people are willing to pay.
Here, the multi-point display has a small issue: In the first picture, the vinegar price is significantly higher than in the second, but the dumpling price in the first picture is 50% of that in the second (first picture dumplings 25, second picture dumplings 52). **So, it's recommended to swap the positions of different-priced vinegars** to match consumer purchase ability.
**3. Consumer Triggers:**
How to trigger consumer purchases? From the consumer's perspective, they are bombarded with various ads daily, so much information is subjectively blocked, forming an "information cocoon." If nothing catches their eye, buying dumplings is just buying dumplings; they ignore everything else. So how to trigger effectively?**
**A suggestion: Place a burst tag next to it saying, "Dumplings are delicious, don't forget to buy vinegar."** This serves as a reminder and better triggers consumer purchase behavior.
In summary, regarding sales, marketing teams should not view consumers from the brand's perspective but **stand in the consumer's shoes to observe the market and consumer purchase behavior**. In today's fiercely competitive market, details often determine success among experts. It's necessary for marketing teams to learn theoretical models.

**02** **Sales Require Products to Meet Changing Consumer Needs in a Timely Manner**
The key to competition in the FMCG industry is to continuously explore and meet ever-changing consumer needs through the integration of product, brand, channel, and supply chain resources. Only by meeting consumer needs can products sell well. Clearly, product ranks first, and good products come from deep consumer insights.
**I. First, Understand Several Misconceptions in Product Insight**
**1. Insight is not observation:** Be consumer-oriented; don't think for consumers; observe consumers, restore their life scenarios and purchase paths; self-examine rather than self-justify; understand that consumers are not decision-makers, and their conclusions are not insights. What we need is consumers' true descriptions to gain insight into their implicit needs.
In short, understand facts about consumers without expressing your own opinions based on those facts.
**2. Selling points are not buying points; features are not benefits:** This is a common mistake made by many FMCG manufacturers and distributors. They boast about their product's quality, technology, craftsmanship, brand, etc., but in one sentence: No matter how good it is, it's not as good as the consumer's feeling that "it's good for me."
Also, don't say what my product can do; guide consumers to realize what they can do with my product; what direct help it brings to customers. Not only should customers benefit, but also solve their problems specifically. **Customers don't buy products; they buy the pursuit of a better self.**
If you don't gain this insight, all marketing is self-indulgence, and product sales are just wishful thinking.
**3. Insight is need based on scenarios:** Surface needs are not necessarily real needs. For example, I bought a bottle of water. What need is this based on? Am I thirsty? Did I see a supermarket promotion? Is the bottle pretty? Did I see others holding one and want one too? Under different needs, I have different purchase behaviors, so the scenario determines my purchase.
At this point, the way to achieve insight is to truly restore consumption scenarios and purchase paths, and empathize to infer.
**II. Several Elements of Product Insight**
**1. Seven Elements of Consumer Research:**
1. Consumer product needs: what they need, need status, product price, purchase method and location, etc.;
2. Consumer habits: not easily changed, willing to try new things;
3. Consumer persona: gender, age, income, education, personality, values, family structure, and family role;
4. Consumer awareness of product and brand: function, emotion, brand, spokesperson, appearance, price, reviews, service, etc.; within awareness, purchase ranking & habits? Reasons, history, process of habit formation?
5. Consumer concerns about the product: where, when, and in what occasions is it used?
6. Consumer feelings when using the product: how do they express these feelings? Post on Moments? Share with friends?
7. Interaction among consumers: are non-users influenced by users? After use, what influence on other consumers?
**2. Five Elements of Product Demand Insight:**
1. Based on "facts": an objective existence, not fabricated or "made up" by the brand; otherwise, what you dig out is a "false need";
2. People-oriented, based on "human nature": insight is not about understanding consumers' "functional" needs for the product, but deep analysis and mining of the target customer group's humanity, emotions, psychology, and lifestyle. Only insights based on "people" can truly move people; consumers are "people," not "concepts";
3. Through in-depth communication, dig out consumers' "true" thoughts;
4. High relevance between brand and product: You may know your target customers inside out, but if your insight lacks relevance to the brand/product, everything is zero;
5. "Fresh" and "unique": find "facts" that others have ignored or never thought of, giving a refreshing feeling; an insight known to most is not a good insight.
Summary: "Profitably satisfying consumer needs" is the most concise definition of marketing by Philip Kotler, the father of modern marketing, in his book "Marketing Management."
From this, we can see that **the core of consumer insight is to understand "consumer needs"; the definition of a product should also be a "tool" that meets consumer needs in different scenarios; and the definition of sales should be that this "tool" is very "handy" for consumers.**

**03** **From the Consumer's Perspective: Why Isn't Your Product Selling?**
Back to the title, how should this question be answered? I think it should be answered from two levels: product and marketing.
**1. Product Level:** Products that cannot continuously explore and meet changing consumer needs will not sell. This requires brands to deeply insight into consumers and understand "real needs."
a. Meet consumers' direct product needs: what consumers lack between "ideal and reality," such as function, quality, appearance, time-saving, price, service, etc.;
b. Meet possible associated needs with the product: physiological, safety, social, esteem, self-actualization, universal truth, etc.;
c. Be clear: "False needs" will never solve sales problems!
**2. Marketing Level:** The era of "good wine needs no bush" is long over. Product sales require marketing support. Here are a few marketing issues to address:
a. Multi-channel consumer reach: Who are consumers? Through which channels can we effectively reach them?
b. Build scenarios for product use, associate with specific scenarios (sales scenarios & consumption scenarios) to inspire consumer needs, such as brand displays, category displays, related displays, etc.;
c. Attract consumer attention: WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, programmatic buying, elevators, subways, buses, and other media, as well as creative displays in physical stores;
d. Consumer psychological weaknesses: mainly use the left-digit effect (e.g., products priced at 9.9 yuan instead of 10 yuan), price anchoring (e.g., using decoy products to enhance the cost-effectiveness of profit products), proportion bias (e.g., expensive items labeled "direct discount 100 yuan," cheap items labeled "50% off"), herd mentality, love me love my dog, etc., to tempt consumers into impulse purchases;
e. Consumer state: Is there a current need? Are habits easy to change? Are they comparing? Like Nongfu Spring's Oriental Leaf: in 2011, the demand for sugar-free tea was small, but as health awareness increases, the habit of drinking sugary tea will change. Consumers need continuous guidance and education.**


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