Growing up, especially in high school, holidays were never for reading. My old man wouldn’t let me spend weeks at home buried in revision. Instead, he would send me to work in different retail outlets. His philosophy was simple. It is not enough for a man to be smart. He must learn the art of dealing with people. To him, all opportunities lie with people, so I had to master selling, conflict resolution, and customer service.
One holiday, I was stationed at an agrovet shop, and that’s where I stumbled on a truth that has stayed with me ever since. Farmers would come in, and whenever I offered them two variants of Oxytetracycline antibiotics, they almost always picked the more expensive one, even when it cost 60% more. Some even called friends for soft loans just to afford it. The funny part? Both products were exactly the same chemical compound, just with different labels on the bottle. But any attempt to explain that was brushed off. To them, if it cost more, it had to be better. The price was an irrefutable indicator of quality.
What I later came to realise is that this mindset isn’t just about farmers. It runs through almost every demographic. A scroll through social media is enough proof. People flaunting how much they have spent on the most mundane items. Influencers and celebrities showing off their shopping sprees. The obsession isn’t about actual quality, it’s about validation. Standing out. Being seen.
And yet we still like to convince ourselves that we make rational choices. That we weigh options carefully, compare pros and cons, and then pick the best deal. But the truth is, we don’t. We lead with emotion and only later scramble for logic to justify what we have already chosen. Biology itself rigs the game against us.
The human brain is split into three major parts. The first part, the Reptilian Brain, is in charge of our survival. It controls breathing, reflexes, and instincts. The second part, the Limbic System, rules our emotions, habits, memories, motivations, relationships, stress, and arousal regulation. This is where most of our decisions are actually made.
Think about it. You probably didn’t sit down and compare every single bank account side by side, listing transaction charges, ledger fees, ATM withdrawal limits, and loan facilities, before choosing where to keep your money. You simply picked the one that felt right, or the bank everyone around you was using, and later found reasons to justify why it was the best option.
The same applies when buying a washing machine. Few of us draw up detailed comparison charts of spin speeds, water efficiency, and motor warranties. We just walk into a store, see a brand we trust, and convince ourselves it’s the smartest choice.
Even with cars, most people don’t analyse every model in the same class by engine capacity, fuel economy, and transmission. What usually happens is that you narrow it down to two or three brands you already like, and you stick within that comfort zone, even if another brand has objectively better options. In all these cases, the choice is emotional first. The logic comes later.
The third part is the Neocortex. It’s the part of the brain responsible for our intelligence, logic, reasoning, ethics, empathy, planning, and self-awareness. This part steps in after the fact. It doesn’t lead the decision; it defends it. That’s why people can justify anything, from political choices to fashion obsessions, with perfectly sound arguments, no matter how outrageous they look from the outside.
If this is how our brains work, why does the cost-versus-quality conversation matter? Because brand strategists, myself included, understand this psychology and use it to influence willingness to pay. It’s what makes brands profitable. But as consumers, being aware of this trap helps us separate real value from empty branding promises. Resources are finite, time is limited, and the only way to win is to find the cut-off point where spending more no longer delivers meaningful returns. That’s what optimisation is. Extracting the maximum benefit from the minimum effective dose. Beyond that point, you’re just burning money.
This became painfully clear earlier this year, at the height of the China–USA trade war. Chinese manufacturers flocked to TikTok to expose the real cost of producing luxury items. One viral case revealed the actual cost of making a Hermès Birkin bag. The factory worker broke down the cost of every element needed to make a Hermès Birkin bag, from premium leather, threads, and steel hardware to lining and craftsmanship, and the total came to USD 1,400. Yet the same bag retails at $38,000. That’s a 2,600% markup, justified only by branding. Granted, businesses have overheads such as research, intellectual property, and marketing, but even then, the margin is extreme.
And it’s not just fashion. The same illusion plays out in smartphones, where devices above a certain price threshold are practically standardised, yet people still fight to the death over iPhones versus Androids. Nairobi’s real estate market tells the same story. Two three-bedroom apartments with identical square footage, quality of finishes, amenities, and micro-environments can have rental prices that are wildly different simply because one sits in a formerly affluent estate. With better roads and new estates popping up across the city, location premiums often stop making sense. The same skewed models exist in healthcare, hospitality, and even basic consumer goods.
So how do you escape the trap? The best approach is to treat personal, capital-intensive purchases the same way you’d treat a business investment. Imagine you are buying a commercial truck. You would not just pick the shiniest one. You would check load capacity, fuel efficiency, spare-part availability, warranty, and overall running costs. Only then would you decide which model makes sense for your business. Apply the same rigour to your life. Strip away the branding noise. Focus on whether spending more genuinely translates into better outcomes. Because every product has a cut-off point, below which a higher price usually means higher quality. Beyond it, you’re mostly paying for perception.
Before you buy that next must-have product, ask yourself whether you’ve identified the real cost–quality cut-off point, or are you simply buying into a brand story? At the end of the day, you’re never just purchasing the item. You are also buying the story you’ve told yourself about it.
Insightful, thank you Mark