Why do parents stop buying?

Sounds like Diamonds went to school but didn’t get an education. Perhaps he took an introduction to marketing class. He did well in that class. The next semester he took the same class. Again and again.
Anyway, I asked Johnny’s parents why he didn’t get chips and a soda. Most of us already know what his parents said: “BECAUSE I SAID SO!”

Your teachers suck. Look into taking classes in Behavioral Economics instead of the old school “rational actor” style Classical Economics. The rational actor theories are terrible at predicting the behavior of actual humans in a microeconomic sense. Start by reading the works of Daniel Kahneman and open yourself to understanding people as more than dollar signs and robotic decision-making processes.

Enjoy,
Steven

A better question may be, based on the one-time-ness of the hypotheticals, why the anomalous purchases were made, rather than wondering why they did not continue.

Are you saying that her questions about why you can’t sell things you just find and don’t own are part of an independent study, then?

You’re missing an obvious component. You have another agent involved - the Buyer. Your Consumer (little Johnny) likes the Product but he’s not the one making the decision. The Buyer (Johnny’s parent) makes the decision. So what was being offered to the Buyer to cause them to purchase the Product for the Consumer?

That would be an ecumenical matt.. Wait, what? Her? They are letting women in school now?

That explains a lot.

Can I hazard a guess that you haven’t been in sales or marketing in the real world for that long?

I don’t sell consumer products like pop or potato chips, but there are a jillion reasons why people stop purchasing products they like. Human behavior is complex, and while they have to start by teaching the basics, you quickly find out the real world is nowhere like the text books.

As Little Nimo pointed out, the buyer in the OP isn’t the one consuming the products, and thus is much more likely to factor in other considerations such as developing habits.

For adults, you can get people like my wife who likes food and candy, but likes staying thinner more, so she will buy some chocolate, eat one piece and let the remainder sit forever.

But the product is bought only when needed/wanted.

I always have a certain brand and variety of shampoo at home, but I don’t buy shampoo every time I go to the supermarket, because I don’t need it. I only buy shampoo when I go to the supermarket and the bottle at home is running out.

If I bought shampoo every time I enter a store that stocks that brand and variety, I wouldn’t have room in the house for me, it would all be filled with shampoo bottles…

Joey Joe Joe Shabado Jr (name changed to protect the guilty) used to buy $30 of comic books every week.
Then one day Joey Joe Joe stops buy comic books and never buys another one again.
Yet he still watches TV shows and movies about comic book characters so clearly his tastes are not too different.
Why did he stop buying comics?

Well, he could no longer afford them. The price of comics continued to rise, while his own income was taking several hits in this mess of an economy. Not only were prices of comics rising, so was the cost of everything else, some things Joey Joe Joe could not live without (such as food), so something had to give. That something was his comics.

I don’t waste my money on frivolous temporary pleasures like chips and sugar because heroin is damn expensive.