Access to this full-text is provided by EDP Sciences.
Content available from SHS Web of Conferences
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
Product features that hit consumers' pain points may lead to
reduced willingness to pay
Yizhuo Wang
University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Abstract. The pain point is a specific form of consumer demand and a concept that has been widely used in
marketing business strategies in recent years. Pain points arise when consumers have put in enough effort to
achieve their goals but have little effect. In this paper, the concept of the pain-feature matching effect is
proposed by combining past research on consumer pain points and consumers' attitudes with pain point
targeting features. It is predicted that consumers' willingness to pay may decrease significantly when the
product feature matches their pain point to a high degree. This hypothesis was tested through a questionnaire
experiment: by assigning products with different pain scenarios and features, the conclusion was judged based
on different feedback data from participants. The results show that consumers' willingness to pay decreases
when there is high pain-feature matching. This finding adds to the theory of the effectiveness of consumer
pain marketing and provides guidance to retailers on how to effectively promote product features in their
business activities.
Keywords: Consumer Pain Point, Product Feature, Willingness To Pay
1. Introduction
Meeting the needs of consumers can impact their
willingness to buy a product. In marketing today, it is
common practice to design and promote product features
tailored to consumer groups' needs. For example,
consumers who consume excessive amounts of sugar may
need low or zero sugar foods, and manufacturers can
effectively meet this need by designing products and
promoting features relevant to this group of consumers. A
pain point is a form of consumer demand that arises from
a strong dissatisfaction within the consumer. Some
companies try to tap into consumer pain points in their
social research and hope to create products that focus on
them to achieve better market performance.
In this paper, we proposed a pain-feature matching effect,
such that consumers are less willing to pay for the product
when the level of matching between product feature and
consumer pain point is high.
This paper seeks to make several contributions. First, we
expand on the theoretical aspect of pain points by
introducing the concept of the pain-feature matching
effect, which is an indicator of how well a consumer's pain
point matches a product's pain point feature. Second, this
paper experimentally proves the hypothesis that
consumers' willingness to pay is significantly lower when
the pain-feature match is high. Third, we disprove past
marketing strategies for consumer pain points in business.
The findings of this study can guide retailers in their
marketing campaigns for product features. Companies
would do well to avoid promoting pain-targeting features
to consum ers wit h pain points, as th is m ay h ave a negative
effect on the target consumer's willingness to pay and thus
affect the product's market performance.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows.
Section 2 is a theoretical framework review, while section
3 presents the research design and results. The final
section 4 provides a general discussion and an outlook on
future research.
2. Theoretical Framework
2.1 Pain Point
The pain point is a concept that is widely used in
marketing research. Usually, a pain point is an unmet need
that a customer is waiting to have met and can be solved
by a product or service with a targeted feature (Platzer,
2018). In business, the pain felt by customers comes from
emotions rather than the body. Pain points can reflect
current or potential customers' main interests and needs
(Wang et al.,2016). Consumer pain points often vary from
person to person and can be recurring or persistent,
causing inconvenience or annoyance to the customer (Ma,
2014). Identifying groups of customers with similar pain
points allows for timely adjustment of product strategies
and helps companies achieve accurate market
segmentation and positioning (De Bonte and Fletcher,
2014). Many products are now presented with text that
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
SHS Web of Conferences 169, 01074 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/202316901074
FEMS 2023
wants to hit the consumer's pain points. Pain points are
likely to arise when there is no effective feedback after the
consumer has a goal and has put enough effort into the
goal. For example, a customer who wants to lose weight
may feel frustrated when the weight does not come off
after hard exercise, which is a pain point for this type of
consumer. Many products are now presented with text
that wants to hit the consumer's pain points. Consumer
pain points are usually caused by a psychological gap or
dissatisfaction arising from the weak results of working
towards a goal, and these various pain points can directly
affect the consumer's purchase decision (Lee, 2014).
Consumers with pain points often have an end goal, and
the reason for creating a pain point often implies the
failure of a sub-goal. The failure of the sub-goal has a
negative effect on the achievement of the ultimate goal,
and therefore the pain point may bring about the idea of
abandoning the goal for the consumer (Ilies & Judge,
2005; Shah & Kruglanski, 2002). The painful memories
caused by pain points are likely to create negative
emotions for consumers, which may influence their
rational decision-making, in which case they are more
likely to choose products that are inconsistent with their
goals (Andrade & Cohen, 2007). Consumers avoid
products that hit pain points because they want to escape
the pain to have a better consumption experience (Cova,
2021).
2.2 pain-feature Matching Effect
Various product features are important factors that
influence consumers' purchasing decisions (Hoegg et
al.,2010; Park et al.,1991; Brose et al.,2005; Auger et
al.,2010; Schuitema & De Groot,2015). There are many
different types of product information and are usually
presented to consumers in various forms. Consumers can
learn basic information about a product, including its
appearance, price, and brand by its exterior. These
apparent features help consumers initially judge the
quality of the product (Dawar & Parker,1994). At the
same time, manufacturers also print information on the
packaging that is not readily observable about the product,
such as origin, ingredients, and process. Consumers will
judge whether a product meets their needs based on their
trust in the product's feature information (Luhmann,
2018).
A pain point is an expression of a consumer's needs, but
unlike conventional needs, products with features related
to a consumer's pain point may have a different impact on
the consumer's willingness to pay. Many companies
confuse consumer pain points with consumer needs in
their marketing decisions, claiming that the product has a
pain point feature. A pain point feature is a product that
has a feature that hits a consumer with a corresponding
pain point. However, the same product features cannot be
called pain point features for consumers who do not
generate pain points. The pain point characteristics of a
product will vary depending on how well it matches the
consumer's pain point. When a consumer with an intense
pain point encounters a product feature that is specific to
the pain point, the product feature matches the consumer's
pain point to a high degree. If product features are not
highly relevant to consumer pain points, the pain point-
feature match will be low. The effect on consumers is
most pronounced when the pain-feature match is high.
According to rational choice theory, consumers will
always choose the product with the most excellent utility,
and a product that satisfies consumers' needs will make
them more eager to buy (Green & Fox, 2007). However,
a large body of previous research has shown that
psychological factors can significantly impact consumer
behaviour and that consumers do not always make
rational decisions (William, 1976; Hansen, 1976; Woods,
1960). Consumers may be less willing to pay for the
product in question when there is a high degree of pain-
feature matching, which stems from the hedonistic
motivation of consumers in choosing their purchases
(Malkoc and Zauberman, 2018). Hedonic motivation is a
person's feelings of pleasure and pain that lead to internal
thoughts of being close to a goal or away from a threat
(Higgins, 2006). According to the hedonic principle,
consumers tend to approach pleasure and avoid pain (Alba
& Williams, 2013). Consumers may avoid products with
a high pain--feature match out of motivational orientation
to avoid recalling the bad experiences associated with the
pain point (Elliot, 1999). Consumers who have a pain
point and have been unable to resolve it for a long time
are internally distant from the psychological distance of
achieving the goal of solving the pain point (Maglio,
2019). With the psychological implication that the goal of
solving the pain point becomes inaccessible, consumers
who see a product with a high pain point-functionality
match may have less confidence in the product's feature
presentation and reduced willingness to pay (Tsai &
McGill, 2011). Therefore, the effect of a high pain-feature
match may be negative. This paper proposes the
hypothesis that consumers' willingness to pay is
significantly lower when there is a high level of pain-
feature matching.
3. Study
3.1 Experiment Purpose
This study aimed to test the pain-feature matching effect
we proposed. We predicted the highest pain-feature match
when participants had a pain point and encountered a
product with a pain point feature, in which case they had
an avoidance desire to purchase the product. Conversely,
the pain-feature match was lower when participants had a
pain point and encountered a product without a pain point
feature. When participants had no pain points, the pain-
feature match was lower regardless of their encountered
feature. By manipulating participants' pain point level and
the type of feature they encountered, we expected no
significant difference in outcomes across scenarios where
participants had a low pain-feature match but a significant
negative effect on participants' willingness to pay when
the pain-feature match was high.
3.2 Procedure
This study employed a 2 (Pain point: with vs. without) ×
2 (Product feature: Pain point targeting vs. Not targeting)
2
SHS Web of Conferences 169, 01074 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/202316901074
FEMS 2023
between-subjects design. Two hundred and forty-one
participants from the prolific platform participated in the
experiment for monetary reward. Participants were
randomly assigned to one of the four conditions. We first
asked participants to imagine a scenario “At the beginning
of this year, you took a physical examination. Your
weight was 90 kg (BMI=27.7). Your family doctor
thought that you were overweight and might have a
potential risk of hypertension. He advised you to lose
some weight to reach the standard weight range (BMI 20-
25). ”. For participants in the pain point condition, they
were told that “After two months of continuous exercise
(an average of 1.5 hours per day), you have lost 2 kg! Now
your weight is 88 kg (BMI=27.2). Although you keep
exercising hard, you are still some way from achieving
your goal (BMI<25)”, while participants in the no pain
point condition were told that “After two months of
continuous exercise (an average of 1.5 hours per day), you
have lost 8 kg! Now your weight is 82 kg (BMI=25.3).
Although you keep exercising hard, you are still some
way from achieving your goal (BMI<25)”. After the
scenario imaging, participants answered the questions
“To what extent do you think you have achieved the goal
of losing weight?” and“To what extent do you think your
have made effective effort to lose weight?”
Then participants viewed a poster ad for bread. In the pain
point targeting condition, the ad introduced the feature as
“Sugar-free and cream-free wholemeal bread,” while in
the not targeting condition, the poster ad introduced the
bread as “Wholemeal bread from France.” After viewing
the ad, participants indicated how much they were willing
to pay for this bread.
3.3 Results
3.3.1 Manipulation Checks
Pain points were generated if the consumer had a goal and
had put enough effort into getting closer to the goal, but
the result was not good. In order to check whether the two
hypothetical different consumer scenarios acted
differently for participants in guiding the generation of
pain points, participants were asked two questions for the
pain point manipulation check. For each manipulation
check, we asked participants to indicate how satisfied they
were on a 7-point scale of a similar type (1 = strongly
dissatisfied; 7 = strongly satisfied). A one-way ANOVA
yielded a significant effect of Effectiveness of effort
(F(1,240) = 43.525, p < 0.05). The second question asked
participants to indicate how they perceived their effort to
be effective. an one-way ANOVA yielded a significant
effect of Effectiveness of effort (F(1,240) = 43.616, p <
0.05). The results could demonstrate that the independent
variables were meaningful and that the successful pain
point manipulation check.
3.3.2 Performance
The experiment examined the psychological expectations
of offers given by participants in different weight loss
effectiveness scenarios for products with different degrees
of pain-feature matching (conducted on a slider scale with
intervals ranging from £0.8 to £2.2). Data findings
revealed that the degree of effectiveness of weight loss
effort had no significant effect on the quotes given by
participants to products (F(1, 240) = 0.044, p > 0.05). Also,
the degree of pain-feature matching did not have a
significant effect on the offers given by participants (F(1,
240) = 1.758, p > 0.05). However, when a two-way
ANOVA analysis was conducted between the degree of
effectiveness of the weight loss effort and the different
pain-feature matches of the product, we found a
significant effect on the offers given by participants to the
product (F(1, 240) = 7.108, p < 0.05). The degree of the
pain-feature match was high when participants were
brought into scenarios with pain points and exposed to
products with pain point targeting features (Mwith =
1.375; SD = 0.312). When participants were brought into
a scenario with a pain point but were exposed to a product
without the pain point targeting feature, the pain-feature
match was low (Mwithout = 1.425; SD = 0.286). By
comparing the studies, we conclude that consumers are
significantly less willing to pay when the pain-feature
match is high. When participants were brought into a
scenario where there was no pain point, consumers did not
have a pain-feature match for either product they were
exposed to, and there was no significant preference to pay
(M = 1.431; SD = 0.288). The experiment proved the
hypothesis that consumers' willingness to pay for products
with pain point targeting features decreases significantly
when the pain-feature matching level is high.
4. General Discussion
Extensive previous research has shown that product
features perform better in the marketplace when they meet
consumer needs. Our research addresses pain points,
which is a specific consumer need that is subjective. This
paper demonstrates the different willingness to pay for
products with different levels of pain-feature matching. A
questionnaire experiment was designed to survey 241
consumers, which showed that the cross-section of
consumers' weight-loss effectiveness and the product's
pain-feature match significantly impacted consumers'
willingness to pay for the product. Participants in the
scenario where the weight loss effort was ineffective, and
the product pain-feature was a good match were willing
to pay a relatively low price for the product. The results
suggest that when consumers have a pain point, and the
pain-feature match is high, the product causes avoidance,
and consumers are significantly less willing to pay.
While there has been a wealth of research on the definition
of pain points themselves and consumer needs influencing
consumer choice, there has been little research on the
intersection of consumer pain points and product pain
point targeting features on consumer willingness to pay.
Although the emphasis on satisfying consumer pain
points in business is widespread, retailers lack an
understanding of the consumer psychology behind pain
point marketing campaigns in most cases. We extend the
pain-feature matching effect concept to the theoretical
aspect of pain points, which indicates how well the degree
3
SHS Web of Conferences 169, 01074 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/202316901074
FEMS 2023
of consumer pain matches the pain feature of a product.
Experimentally, we obtained the result that increasing the
pain-feature match of a product may have a negative
effect on increasing the willingness to pay of consumers
with relevant pain points. The experiment's conclusions
are contrary to the theory that satisfying consumer needs
will be more attractive to the target group. According to
the hedonic principle, consumers tend to seek pleasure
and avoid pain, and hitting a pain point can cause painful
memories and thus reduce the desire to buy the product.
For example, manufacturers believe that products
claiming to help with weight loss will hit a pain point and
increase the desire to buy for consumers who have had
poor weight loss results. In fact, the consumers who tend
to buy products have lost weight well because their
excellent weight loss results give them a feeling of
pleasure. Consumers with poor weight loss results will
avoid products with weight loss-related features because
of their poor weight loss results. This paper proves the
hypothesis experimentally that consumers are
significantly less willing to pay when pain-feature
matching is high.
The implications of the survey results for marketing
campaigns are significant. Manufacturers should
probably not focus their market research on finding
consumers' pain points and expecting to impress them
with products with a high pain-feature match. Hoping to
increase the price premium of a product by matching it to
a consumer's pain point may not be successful, as
consumers with pain points are less willing to pay for such
goods. If the company wants to sell products with a high
pain-feature match, lower pricing is needed to reduce the
consumer's pain of payment. Companies that focus on
creating products that meet normal consumer needs are
likely to have better results, such as cars with driving aids
and fresh vegetable salads, which cater to consumer needs
but are not pain points for consumers. Therefore, it is best
not to try to address consumers' pain points in the product
research process but rather to investigate general hedonic
needs, which can help to increase consumers' desire to buy
and provide a premium for the product (Ravi and Klaus,
2000).
The current study's findings have some limitations and
may provide a basis for future research. A study of weight
loss pain points among native English-speaking
participants living in the UK concluded that consumers
were significantly less willing to pay for products with a
high pain-feature match. In future studies, the findings can
be repeated by considering different areas of pain and
products in multiple trials. At the same time, consumers'
cultural background and education level may also
influence the perception of pain points and attitudes
toward high pain-feature match products. These
limitations may affect the accuracy of the findings, and
the conclusions should be validated in the future through
more targeted research.
Reference
1. Alba, J. W., & Williams, E. F. (2013). Pleasure
principles: A review of research on hedonic
consumption. Journal of consumer
psychology, 23(1), 2-18.
2. Andrade, E. B., & Cohen, J. B. (2007). On the
consumption of negative feelings. Journal of
Consumer Research, 34(3), 283-300.
3. Auger, P., Devinney, T. M., Louviere, J. J., & Burke,
P. F. (2010). The importance of social product
attributes in consumer purchasing decisions: A multi-
country comparative study. International Business
Review, 19(2), 140-159.
4. Brose, U., Cushing, L., Berlow, E. L., Jonsson, T.,
Banasek-Richter, C., Ber sier, L. F., ... & Martinez, N.
D. (2005). BODY SIZES OF CONSUMERS AND
THEIR RESOURCES: Ecological Archives E086‐
135. Ecology, 86(9), 2545-2545.
5. Cova, B. (2021). The new frontier of consumer
experiences: escape through pain. AMS
Review, 11(1), 60-69.
6. Dawar, N., & Parker, P. (1994). Marketing universals:
Consumers’ use of brand name, price, physical
appearance, and retailer reputation as signals of
product quality. Journal of marketing, 58(2), 81-95.
7. De Bonte, A., & Fletcher, D. (2014). Scenario-
Focused Engineering: A toolbox for innovation and
customer-centricity. Microsoft Press.
8. Elliot, A. J. (1999). Approach and avoidance
motivation and achievement goals. Educational
psychologist, 34(3), 169-189.
9. Green, D. P., & Fox, J. (2007). Rational choice
theory. Social Science Methodology. L.: Sage
Publications, 269-281.
10. Hansen, F. (1976). Psychological theories of
consumer choice. Journal of Consumer Research,
117-142.
11. Higgins, E. T. (2006). Value from hedonic
experience and engagement. Psychological
review, 113(3), 439.
12. Luhmann, N. (2018). Trust and power. John Wiley &
Sons.
13. Hoegg, J., Alba, J. W., & Dahl, D. W. (2010). The
good, the bad, and the ugly: Influence of aesthetics
on product feature judgments. Journal of Consumer
Psychology, 20(4), 419-430.
14. Ilies, R., & Judge, T. A. (2005). Goal regulation
across time: The effects of feedback and
affect. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 453– 467.
15. Lee, S. (2014). Pain Is Good. IMatchPoint Limited.
16. Ma, X. (2014). Pain Point Marketing. Business
Management, 10.
17. Maglio, S. J. (2020). Psychological distance in
consumer psychology: Consequences and
antecedents. Consumer Psychology Review, 3(1),
108-125.
18. Malkoc, S. A., & Zauberman, G. (2019).
Psychological analysis of consumer intertemporal
decisions. Consumer Psychology Review, 2(1), 97-
113.
4
SHS Web of Conferences 169, 01074 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/202316901074
FEMS 2023
19. McGuire, W. J. (1976). Some internal psychological
factors influencing consumer choice. Journal of
Consumer research, 2(4), 302-319.
20. Park, C. W., Milberg, S., & Lawson, R. (1991).
Evaluation of brand extensions: The role of product
feature similarity and brand concept
consistency. Journal of consumer research, 18(2),
185-193.
21. Platzer, D. (2018, October). Regarding the pain of
users: towards a genealogy of the “pain point”.
In Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference
Proceedings (Vol. 2018, No. 1, pp. 301-315).
22. Schuitema, G., & De Groot, J. I. (2015). Green
consumerism: The influence of product attributes and
values on purchasing intentions. Journal of
Consumer Behaviour, 14(1), 57-69.
23. Shah, J. Y., & Kruglanski, A. W. (2002). Priming
against your will: How accessible alternatives affect
goal pursuit. Journal of experimental social
psychology, 38(4), 368-383.
24. Tsai, C. I., & McGill, A. L. (2011). No pain, no gain?
How fluency and construal level affect consumer
confidence. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(5),
807-821.
25. Wang, B., Miao, Y., Zhao, H., Jin, J., & Chen, Y.
(2016). A biclustering-based method for market
segmentation using customer pain
points. Engineering Applications of Artificial
Intelligence, 47, 101-109.
26. Woods, W. A. (1960). Psychological dimensions of
consumer decision. Journal of Marketing, 24(3), 15-
19.
5
SHS Web of Conferences 169, 01074 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/202316901074
FEMS 2023
