Heuristics are conscious or subconscious “rules of thumb” people make to simplify various decisions. In market research, we sometimes want to understand what heuristics people use when making purchasing decisions. When looking at a grocery store shelf display of twenty brands of toothpaste, the shopper typically is not reading every package or considering every price. As a hypothetical example, research may find that 70% of shoppers use their favorite brand combined with “anything whitening” to make their selections.
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