Interesting article here outlines that the Dutch consumer actually buys on his/her price perception rather than the real price. Research of OC&C Strategy Consultants, covering 4500 participants in 5 countries shows that the Dutch (in contrast to their reputation of being penny-wise) are the worst choosers on real price. In the Nehterlands, the price perception is about 15 % apart from the real prices, with some sectors showing a discepancy of even 30 %.
While the OCC Research was done in physical retail stores, it does hold for financial services as well. Research done by CapGemini (presented mid june) shows the same effect. Consumers perceive a bank or bank service to be cheap, while the reality may be different.
This does put last weeks mini-media-hype on retail payment fees in perspective. There was bit of uproar as if banks had announced that prices for retail payments would rise, while the only thing that happened was that an analysis was presented on the effect of the Payment Services Directive. And that analysis outlined that from an analytical perspective there would be more transparancy in pricing; most likely to be percieved by the public as price hikes.
So, now it is clear that for the Dutch, the perception counts more than reality, the banks might just as well want to consider announcing that prices will fall....?
