Why You Should Never Make Large Purchases on Your Phone
If you’re constantly online, you’ve probably heard about the brewing intergenerational debate about “laptop shopping” versus “phone shopping.” The basic concept is simple: shopping online using your phone is fine for small, everyday purchases , but for larger items like airline tickets or home appliances, you should use a laptop. It’s typically framed as a divide between Gen Z and millennials, with the latter insisting that certain transactions are “laptop purchases” and the former mocking them by posting about buying a house on their phone while lying on the couch.
Depending on your age, you probably have a gut reaction to this—for example, the thought of buying a plane ticket on my phone makes me sweat. But there are actually some very good reasons why you should make larger purchases using your computer rather than your phone.
Benefits of a larger screen
Even if your smartphone is one of those eight-inch foldable monsters, there’s a fundamental reason why buying things on your laptop or desktop is a better option: information. For example, you can see much more on a larger screen with multiple browser tabs. Even a modest 13- or 15-inch laptop screen can display much more information than a phone screen. The increased screen real estate also makes it easier to switch between browser tabs to compare prices or find supporting information that can inform or complement your purchase, such as digital coupons.
Of course, there is an element of personal preference here; People who use their phones for every single aspect of their lives may have no problem managing 27 browser tabs on that tiny screen, but they definitely don’t get all the information on one screen that a laptop or desktop user gets. And when making a large purchase, it is always useful to get additional information.
Friction and dripping
One of the reasons why retailers would really love it if we all started buying everything with our phones is because of what you might call “friction” – all the extra steps and open windows that slow down the buying process just a little. If you’ve ever had your finger twitch at the wrong moment and bought the wrong seats at a concert, for example, you know how important that friction can be.
Another reason why a laptop is a better choice for a large purchase is drip pricing . Drip pricing is when the initial advertised price of something (like a plane ticket) is extremely low, but each individual addition, convenience, or adjustment adds a little more cost, often behind the scenes. People tend to make worse spending decisions when dealing with drip pricing strategies because by the time they realize how much higher the final price is, they no longer think that going back and restarting the process is worth the money. they would save money by making the changes. choice. And this effect may be stronger on a phone due to the perceived level of difficulty of starting over, as well as the fact that it may be harder to see how the extra cost is added to the total each time you click on something.
Focus
When you use your phone to shop, you’re also often fighting an ingrained way of using these devices. Laptops and computers are often used for work or school, while we tend to use phones more casually, often as a distraction. This subtle difference can affect how well we concentrate when shopping online, making it easier to make impulse purchases on our phones. The situation may be made worse by the simplicity of the transaction; Getting up to open a laptop or boot up a desktop computer causes us to pause before clicking “buy,” and so-called “dark patterns”—design tricks that manipulate you into spending more or making more impulsive purchasing choices—can be more effective on mobile devices.
The most important aspect of online shopping is that you are comfortable with the process, so if you prefer to shop (even big-ticket items) on your mobile device, you do. But it is worth considering the very real advantages of a larger screen and incl.