Credit crunched consumers are choosing to save their gift vouchers because they think they will get more pleasure out of them by waiting to treat themselves. Behaviour economists Suzanne B. Shu and Ayelet Gneezy, say this ends up with fewer people actually using the vouchers. As the recession bites, we are seeing the rise of a medical condition known as ‘hyperopia’, which according to Harvard Magazine, is the habit of overestimating the benefits one will receive in the future from making responsible decisions now. The word, taken from ophthalmology, means ‘farsightedness’, and works to our detriment by driving people “to underconsume precisely those products and experiences that they enjoy the most.” Time-sensitive offers such as birthday passes and vouchers with an urgent expiry date could be the solution. Online luxury store Gilt Groupe sells limited edition stock on sale for only 36 hours every day and has over 1m members. Economist Edward Leamer thinks that time-sensitive offers might even boost the economy more effectively than temporary tax cuts.

 

Thanks to Ellie Osborne for this story. Ellie is wondering if you can overdose on tea, houmous and/or grapes.

 

References: What’s Next, The Atlantic, We Think and Harvard magazine

image: Bran van Damme, flickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/bramus/2998573943/

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