Late Majority

Some people might call us a trendsetter…but they’d be wrong. We’re part of the “late majority” crowd: the folks who wait until something is no longer cutting-edge before they buy it. Not only does the price on things tend to go down when they’ve been on the market for a little while, but any kinks with the product are usually worked out by the time we get around to buying one.

For example, holding off on buying a Galaxy Note 7 until after they stopped exploding was, we felt, a pretty solid strategy.

But along with those pros come a few cons. If we wait too long to adopt new technologies or buy new and wonderful things, we could find ourselves so far behind the trend curve that we almost have to buy the item in order to continue living life the way we want to live it.

Smartphones are a good example. We probably don’t need one to survive, but a lot of modern life kind of revolves around having one: texting, social media, credit card app alerts, driving directions, weather apps, email access, calculators, calendars, food delivery, emergency alerts, and literally about ten million other aspects of life can all be accessed—and dealt with—via out smartphones. So those people who are still holding onto their flip phone with the five-pixel camera might not absolutely need to upgrade to a smartphone—like...their lives probably don’t physically depend on it—but the changing times might be pushing that late majority toward a smartphone purchase whether they like it or not.

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)