What is non consumption?

When utilising the Jobs To Be Done framework the information derived helps you analyse the competitive set, the products a user chooses between when deciding on which product to hire to complete a job.

One phenomena that is particularly difficult is that of non consumption. This is when a user’s needs are not met by any product in the market place and rather than chose the best from a bad bunch they do nothing, they do not buy or use any product or service.

These markets are potentially valuable as the people in them are overlooked by competitors, but the question is: how are you supposed to discover markets when the people in them are choosing to do nothing?

Imagine this example: truck drivers and hotels. A truck driver needs to stay over for the night but they don’t use hotels. Why not? Hotels offer fancy rooms and concierge services etc. The problem is truck drivers don’t care about these things and therefore don’t want to pay for something they don’t use. The end result is non consumption - they sleep in their trucks.

When looking for non consumption you are looking for workarounds. You are looking for people who have developed manual processes for themselves, people who are improvising a solution. Speaking to these users and asking them why they don’t do X or Y will reveal if there is a hidden market opportunity.

One of the problems of looking for non-consumption is that people who have developed work arounds are so used to them they don’t see them as work arounds. If you asked them they would over look this as to them it has become normal - making standardised questionnaires less useful.