I don’t think that emotional intelligence is used to manipulate consumers to buy products. Manipulation implies that you have control over the consumer if you have emotional intelligence. You never have control over the customer because they can voluntary say no for any reason. It’s kind of like the analogy about the horse and water. You can guide the horse to the water, you can make it easy for the horse to drink it, but you can’t make him drink it. It’s the same idea with emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence can be effective in that helps a business representative persuade a consumer to buy what the/she is offering but you can’t manipulate the person to do it. Ultimately, the customer has the make the decision to buy it and manipulation has a negative connotation to the interaction between seller and consumer. Emotional intelligence is “icing on the cake,” because it’s not the most important thing about selling products. It’s the product that your consumer has to be satisfied with, not how well you can empathize with him/her. I don’t think that using emotional intelligence is the same as manipulation, rather persuasion.