When the Purchase Feels Natural

There I was again, standing in that store holding that product. Manufactum in December. Munich. That store always gets me. I like writing and they have these writing pads and these Japanese pens. My thoughts start spinning again: I don’t need this pad, because for notes and throwing away it’s absurdly expensive, and plain paper that costs a fraction works just as well. I knew I didn’t need it. I use it because it’s expensive and is supposed to lend my thoughts some special appreciation. But I write almost exclusively on a laptop. I bought it anyway. On the way to the car I asked myself why. I had no answer. It had felt right in that moment.

And “feeling right” is the goal. Not mine. The goal of the people building these AI-powered sales systems. That’s what I call them. In reality they’re AI-generated algorithms that represent a future where the moment of purchase is no longer a conscious decision but a “natural consequence” of the customer journey. The customer isn’t supposed to buy deliberately. He’s supposed to buy fluidly, past the point of actual need. Without the moment of hesitation where you ask yourself: Do I really need this?

That’s conversion optimization, where all friction gets eliminated, meaning every step that makes the customer think. Because he must not drop off. I believe it was Amazon that introduced one-click ordering. Pre-filled forms. Recommendations that fit so well that no thought about the why or what for comes up. The ideal buying process is one where you don’t remember a decision afterwards. As absurd as that sounds, the decision-makers and developers build business models based on a view of human beings that is truly remarkable.

The underlying assumption is always: A conscious decision is a problem. The moment a person pauses and thinks is not a sign of autonomy but a high-risk process failure. Essentially a conversion leak that creates friction in the buying process and must be eliminated.

Philosophers spent centuries describing the conscious decision as what makes us human. Today it’s obstacle number one. And artificial intelligence is naturally perfect for switching off human intelligence. Because it’s supposed to be smarter than humans. And humans accept that every day. They hand over more and more tasks to AI. The ability to pause, to examine, and the option to say no, is an obstacle.

People talk about “decision fatigue”, claiming humans make too many decisions per day. People scroll endlessly and frantically and decide in fractions of a second whether content is worth watching or not. It exhausts them. AI-powered systems take that burden off them. That sounds like caring relief and time savings at first, but it’s a fallacy. We all know that.

A conversion system only works for the seller. It doesn’t take the decision away because you need help. It takes the decision away because decisions are bad for business.

The best salesperson I ever encountered sold me nothing. He asked me questions. He gave me time. He said: Go home, think about it, come back. I came back gladly and bought gladly. Not because the process was optimal, but because my decision was accepted as mine.

That’s the difference the industry and its developers probably never learned. They grew up with it. There are purchases that feel natural because they’re right. And there are purchases that feel natural because the friction was removed so well that you missed the moment of thinking. From the outside both look the same, but deep inside it’s something completely different.

Manipulation works best when it goes unnoticed, that’s obvious and not a conspiracy theory. And if you notice someone is manipulating you, the manipulation has failed. So what’s being described here is a technology whose success is measured by how little the person notices it’s acting on them.

I have no problem with companies wanting to sell. I did that for more than 15 years and I might do it again. Right now I’m a consultant and I sell too. That’s the job of many people. But I have a problem when the success of selling depends on the buyer no longer recognizing his own decision as one. Not just because it happens to me at Manufactum, but because people become victims.

The customer journey should be “seamless”, they say. Full flow, no breaks, no hesitation. Flow is a positive word. Water flows too. Always downhill and without thinking. But like with river straightening, something is missing when everything flows without obstacle and nothing resists. It’s not the friction in the moment. It’s the missing autonomy and the emptiness afterwards. So that nobody notices, there are those 4-5 star reviews and everyone is satisfied.