Meaning of the word: Best
We all use the word “ Best “ in our daily life. Not once but many times and on many occasions.
But what is the meaning of this word? According to the Cambridge dictionary, it is “ the superlative of GOOD which means excelling all others or something of the highest quality, or being the most suitable, or Pleasing, or effective thing or a person”
Then what is the meaning of the word cheap? It means something low in price. Throughout life somehow the word cheap is also linked with “products with inferior quality”. This brings the notion to the customers that when you pay more you will get the BEST quality product.
If you look at this the word “Best” got linked with quality and high price.
In the new world of Retail where another word that is creating a buzz is called “Compare”.
The meaning of this word is: “ to examine or look for differences or similarities “. This word also means “ to view in relation with “
This means we need a baseline to compare something.
When eCommerce started internet became a place for comparing the prices, and now it became a place for comparing everything.
Initially, the baseline was the price, people got the habit of comparing two products based on price.
You remember the word Price was somehow linked with Quality.
People had this notion that if it is pricey then it has quality.
Globalization, internet, and eCommerce was a main force in bringing a change to this notion.
It threw a wide variety of options in front of the customers who are used to compare a minimal number of products based on price.
This created a behavioral change in the user’s way of comparing because they could see the same type of product in a wide range of prices. Hence they started comparing other things like Features, Services, Warranty, Quality, Reviews, etc etc.
So slowly internet has become a place for comparing anything and everything.
This behavioral change slowly brought a change to the meaning of the word “Best”. A word which was once linked with “ high price and quality” is now slightly getting related to “ Cheap and reliable or Cheap and Quality”
Now if you look at the google search trends for the words “Cheap” and “Best”. Search interest for “Best “ has outpaced the word “cheap”.
But the precise meaning of “Cheap” and “Best” largely varying between individuals. On the other hand, the word “Best” is getting associated with many other things like value, quality, performance, popularity, etc.
The word once Associated with Quality and high price is
now linked with Cheap, value, quality, performance, popularity, etc.
Analysis of this kind of behavioral change is essential for analyzing the trigger for purchase and consumer decision making of “ Why We Buy What We Buy “
With a lot of options in front, people explore and evaluate in the deep sea of the Internet where cognitive bias shapes their shopping behavior.
To succeed in this sea of opportunity the marketers have to understand the shift in consumer behavior and study the customers. We have to constantly evaluate and study the change in behavior of the users and words. Because when you say it is the best product, then that means “it is the best among what we have seen currently ” A new product could come up at any point of time and could redefine the meaning of “Best”.
