In Response to Chad Brown's post: Cognitive Dissonance

Have you ever experienced this, and can you think of any companies that may be susceptible to this.

I have experienced cognitive dissonance probably more times in my life than I would have liked to, and probably will experience it a few more times. On one occasion I purchased a backpack off the Internet and the web site listed the dimensions of the back pack wrong so when I received it in the mail it was entirely too small to serve the purpose I needed it for. Ultimately I returned the back pack but still had to pay the shipping and wasted probably $10-15. More recently I purchased a mountain bike with plans to ride it a lot over the summer. However, when the summer came I was wrapped up with work and when I wasn't working it seemed to be raining. This bummed me out a little bit and made me think about my purchase and if I should have gone to a professional bike shop to buy an expensive bike as opposed to going to Wal-Mart and purchasing one for half the price, considering the amount of use it actually got.

I think there are multiple companies that are highly susceptible to cognitive dissonance. For example when thinking about my bike purchase it brings to mind the idea of exercise equipment. So often people purchase this equipment with high hopes to use it and after a few weeks or a month it serves a better purpose as a cloths hanger. Another example of companies that are highly susceptible to cognitive dissonance are computer and cellphone companies. There are always new computes and new cell phones coming out. With this being the case the price of the computer or cell phone you just bought months priors often times drops and there is then a newer version of your purchase.

How can companies that sell products that are susceptible to having consumers feel cognitive dissonance improve their products to have their consumers avoid this feeling?