总买些没啥卵用的东西或许和你住的当地有关

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邮政编码暴露了你消费时的正确程度？

还记得水晶百事吗？

水晶百事的广告初次呈现在90年代初，还配上了范·海伦（Van Halen）乐队的歌曲。但假如你此刻脑筋一片空白，不用感到懊丧，由于水晶百事早已消失，就在它呈现之后的短短几年内。

但是，形似这种软饮有过一些粉丝。从前一项研讨发现，那些会购买注定要扑街产品（比方水晶百事）的人，也会购买其他相似产品。

“他们买其他人不会买的东西，并且还会重复购买。”麻省理工学院的经济学家邓肯·西梅斯特（Duncan Simester）说道。他和搭档将此类人称为“失利先知”，由于他们倾向于购买那些会扑街的产品。现在，他们还发现，这些“先知”聚居在相同的邮政编码区域。

上述成果宣布在《商场研讨》（Marketing Research）杂志上。

惋惜地是，研讨人员不会泄漏那些有问题的邮政编码。但这些社区往往会集在市郊，他们的家庭收入偏低，受教育程度亦不高，许多都是单亲家庭。那里的人还很多运用购物优惠券，其间白人的占比……[检查全文]

Certain Zip Codes Pick Losers

Remember Crystal Pepsi?

It debuted in the early ’90s, with a soundtrack of Van Halen. But if you’re blanking, don’t feel bad. Because Crystal Pepsi disappeared—just a few years after it debuted.

But presumably the soft drink had some fans. Previous research found that people who buy products destined to fail—like Crystal Pepsi—also buy other duds.

“They’re buying things other people are not buying. And they’re buying them repeatedly.”

Duncan Simester is an economist at M.I.T. He and his colleagues call these people “harbingers of failure”—because they tend to buy products that flop. Now they find that those harbingers tend to cluster in the same zip codes.

They made the discovery by tracking the purchasing habits of customers at a mass merchandise chain—think Walmart or Target. And they found that certain customers kept buying products most other people didn’t want. In a follow-up experiment, they found that those people also tended to purchase more unpopular, niche items at a clothing retailer. But it goes further. These same people bought homes that appreciated less than other homes. And what’s more, they were more likely to support political candidates who lost. All of which indicates that these people—who, based on zip codes, also tend to live near each other—consistently pick losers.

The results are in the Journal of Marketing Research.

Unfortunately, the researchers won't reveal which zip codes are the ones in question. But the neighborhoods tend to be suburban, with lower household income, less educated residents and more single parents. People there also use a lot of coupons, and...[full transcript]

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