Mental Transaction Cost

Explain and give an example of a mental transaction cost.

Mental transaction cost is where a consumer thinks about whether to make a purchase or not. For example, people use EBAY and love to buy and buy. We use EBAY because we want things for cheap and the cheaper the better. The less something cost the easier it is to buy and there is little doubt about purchasing that item. Now with EBAYs new protection it has taken some thought processing out of deciding to buy a product because of not receiving your item, liking your item, or satisfaction with your product. Or like others mentioned in their blogs, shipping cost. I know I will find a cheap product and look at the shipping and it is outrageously high. That puts up a flag and doubt about the purchase so I will look for the same product for cheap with zero to little shipping cost.

Zero

Zero is hot because FREE is great. No one wants to pay for anything, and when there is a service or product you can get for free whether the service or product is a copy or similar in some way. People will pass on paying for something that has a few more details for a free service any day, but that goes off of preference of a product. For example, people will pay for Photoshop but free alternatives like Splashup, Picnik and Snipshop are just as good. They are not exactly the same as Photoshop with some of the features but serve the same exact purpose for free.