Living To Buy

The Indian consumer today has mutated and understanding this will help companies decode the answer to why he buys.

- David Abikzir

The Indian consumer has become an offbeat, mobile, and flexible ‘turbo-consumer’, greatly emancipated from old-class-cultures, being unpredictable in his tastes and purchases,on the lookout for emotional experiences and wellness, quality of life and health, brands and authenticity, and immediacy and communication.

The development of the modern consumption society has conditioned an environment that is heavily loaded with objects, signs, and interactions based on trade exchanges. The production of manufactured goods increases year after year and the provision of services continues to grow and diversify.

Consumption is such a big part of our daily concerns that, sometimes, we wonder how our ancestors lived. Or even, how they could have been happy, considering that they were deprived of our everyday objects.

The evolution of this complexity—that has made the society change brutally over the last 20 years in India—does not primarily concern the individual as such but rather the characteristics of the world in which he/she lives. Thus, the individual remains unchanged in his individuality. Education gives him the values and keys to navigate in this new world and adapt himself to its evolution, including the development of the artificial and sophisticated character of his material environment that has kept him away from the customs, beliefs, and knowledge that these ancestors possessed to live in ancient societies. The individual is at odds with the so-called traditional society: that of his parents, grandparents, and past generations.

These differences just get bigger as the gap between the complexities of the world and the average intellectual baggage of the individual gets deeper.