The digital world has entered a year where online consumer demand is higher than ever before. Purchasing and searching for products has become faster due to advanced internet speeds, and convenient purchases can be made on a growing variety of platforms – whenever and wherever. Many retailers already have an eStore, and with many more planning online development, consumers will start to spend over multiple websites and if not already, start embracing mCommerce.
With an ever growing marketplace, retailers need to engage consumers by giving them as emotionally satisfying and desirable experience when shopping online to gain brand loyalty and differentiate themselves from the competitors. With consumers becoming harder to analyse and segment into groups (due to diversity in beliefs, attitudes and values), retailers need to allocate more time and expenditure to consumer research to enable successful trading online.
So how can retailers stay on top? Well market research firms such as eConsultancy and Forrester provide reports on statistics measurements of consumer behaviour that are important to assisting retailer’s plans of targeting consumers to their brands. Another option is to look into the psychology of consumer behaviour and how they make decisions like Marsden, Ariely and others (mentioned below).
Marsden’s insights refer to the theories of Professor Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational (a book describing his extensive research into behavioural economics) and explain why consumers use shop-and-tell applications to share purchase information online. Marsden believes that individuals don’t only shop to consume, but also to manage public appearance and personal identity. If this is correct, then how could retailers adapt to these natural effects of human behaviour to sell to consumers in today’s market.
The effect of expectations: Consumers have previously held expectations that irrationally cloud their points of view and even sensory experiences. This means that consumers are likely to ‘like’ something if a retailer suggests that they should, or use positive associations around their products. Consumers are also bad at planning for themselves and sticking to purchasing plans. Retailers could lend a hand here by offering advice to help manage consumer arrangements.
Honesty: Honest behaviour encourages honest behaviour especially when it comes to dealing with cash. This means if a retailer is completely sincere with the service they are giving their consumers then it is much less likely consumers will cheat on refunds and are more likely to give advice and feedback to others if they see the brand doing so.
Value & Quality: Consumers often judge the value of products by comparing prices and associating quality with the cost. By retailers offering alternative product matches as well as in depth product descriptions, consumers will be able to make easier decisions on what they want. Also consumers are a lot more likely to spend more money on products if there is a free gift or special offer as part of the sale.
Options & Excitement: Consumers feel compelled to preserve options which can distract them from their main buying objectives. This means that even if the consumer already had something in mind, they will always weigh up other options just to make sure they are making the right decision. By offering a wide product range, or again alternatives, consumers will be able to eliminate products until they come to the right one for them. Consumers are also easier to sell to when in a state of excitement. Retailers could adapt to this cue by offering an exciting shopping experience that will entice consumers to purchase goods even if they didn’t plan to in the first place.
User experience professional Steve Baty believes that all consumer experience is based on emotion and therefore retailers need to design experiences online that use the language of emotion to attract consumers into buying products. This includes consumer’s ease of use, confidence, capability, willingness to act or to maintain a sense of calm. Baty states that ‘by intentionally crafting experiences with a specific emotion in mind, experiential designers are more likely to deliver a consistent brand experience that builds rapport with customers’.
McKinsey marketing practice services features principles and directors; Court, Elzinga, Mulder and Vetvik who talk about the Consumer Decision Journey. They state that brand awareness and loyalty are significant factors in the considerations consumers make when deciding whether or not to buy into a brand.
Some consumers are active loyalists who not only stick with a brand but also recommend it while others are passive loyalists, who whether from laziness of the confusion caused by the dizzying array of choices, stay with a brand without being committed to it. Consumers are also taking control of driven marketing by pulling information in to help them make decisions.
Thinking about this research from an eCommerce angle, retailers need to strategically measure the effects on their consumers behaviour to the shopping cue’s mentioned above. This kind of thinking is a rapidly maturing tool of marketing and in combination with multivariate testing offers a great opportunity for retailers to really get to the bottom of how their customers shop online.
Multivariate testing is something a retailer can use to test different variations of a web page to evaluate the traffic clicking through to more information, hot spot areas, whether content is stronger once placed differently on the page, if images are making an impact and if the website is user friendly or not.
From this retailers gain a better understanding of consumer needs, emotional experiences and loyalty base which can then be used to make variations and changes to increase the effectiveness of their eCommerce offering and drive more sales which will make them more money online.
Further Reading:
The Psychology of Social Shopping: http://tinyurl.com/4oyqpox
The Consumer Decision Journey: http://tinyurl.com/48e3ky6
Experiences are Emotional: http://tinyurl.com/4639ose
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