Ethics and the Mobile Consumer

I heard it said that mobile technology levels the playing field in sales situations by removing the customer's greatest foible: his own ignorance.   That struck a chord with me, because exploiting the ignorance of another person is the basis of many unethical practices, in many situations other than sales - but for now I'll stick to those situations that are related to commercial interactions between deceitful merchants and their victims.

It's likely important to pause for a moment to concede that not every merchant is deceitful.  However, it does figure into the tactics of many, and otherwise honest merchants stoop to deceit when their minds are more focused on satisfying the revenue metrics placed upon them by their management and investors.   There are those who are, at most times, motivated by a genuine interest to serve the needs of customers with the benefits of a good or service - but even the most scrupulous of merchants may pass along their own misinformation.

But to return to the topic: merchants have long been able to count upon the ignorance of the customer, and could make grandiose and patently false claims that the customer, lacking any way to verify or validate the information, tends to accept as valid, or at least play along for various psychological and sociological reasons.

"This product is effective at solving your problem" is a common lie that customers would not discover until long after the sale was final.   "This product comes highly recommended" is another that could scarce be disputed.   Even claims such as "you won't find a better price anywhere else" stand when there is no ability to refute it with facts.

Prior to the Internet, the customer was completely bereft of information.   It was not impossible to conduct independent research, but doing so often meant a trip to the library, poring over periodicals, sending letters to get information.  For the vast majority of purchases, it simply wasn't worth the time and effort required to gather information in advance of visiting a merchant, or to stall a needed purchase until the research could be done.

Even with the Internet, gaining the information required some effort: the customer would have to conduct this research at their home or office, either in advance or in arrears.   But there was still the effort required to gather the information, analyze it, and memorize it - unless you wanted to carry a stack of notes and print-outs and knew exactly what you needed in advance.   Even then, it's a very simple matter for a liar to invent a different lie, and cause the customer to have to do additional hours of research to confirm.

But with mobile, the information resources are portable: the customer can bring their device with them to the sales floor and reference whatever information is needed in that location.  There's still some degree of effort necessary to retrieve the information, as it is dispersed in various sources, buried in passages of text that are too lengthy to consume on the small screen, and search engines still aren't very good in spite of decades of effort to improve them.

And so, when a merchant claims that a product is effective, the mobile-empowered customer can find evidence to support or refute the claim.   When the merchant claims the product is recommended, the customer can verify whether this is true.  When the merchant claims to offer the best price anywhere, the customer can pretty easily check up on that assertion.

The ability to reference and validate empowers the customer to overcome his ignorance and the deceit of merchants at any time, and in any medium - whether he is negotiating with a live salesman, considering an advertising message, or even reading the claims printed on a package as he is considering an in-store purchase.

Moreover, I expect that this will become even easier over time: what's needed is software that enables the customer to scan a bar-code or type in the name of a product or vendor to retrieve reliable information relevant to the product's functions, qualities, values, price, and other qualities that are germane to making a purchase decision in a format that is easy to use and easy to consume on the mobile platform.

To my knowledge, that does not yet exist, though several different firms have attempted to provide a solution, none of them are entirely satisfactory for various reasons - but again, I expect with time and effort, this will improve.    But even now, there are enough sources of information that only a few minutes (well, maybe ten or fifteen) are required to gather sufficient information to be adequately confident in whether a claim or belief about a product is true or false.

And in the end, this is likely a good thing: many merchants live in fear of  the informed customer - or more aptly, they lived in fear of the customer who could easily disprove the lies that they routinely tell to get revenue to which they are not entitled.   Those who were honest in their claims and fair in their dealings never had any reason to worry, and still do not - and ultimately, if the honest merchants prevail and the deceitful ones perish, that's likely a good thing for everyone.