Ecommerce is a tricky business. Owners need to understand customer psychology and use it to influence their decision making. Buying decisions are often made by feelings of excitement or fear. When customers shop online, they can be influenced to buy – and buy NOW!

Here’s how:

Creating urgency with scarcity

When something is limited, a sense of urgency is created. One of the most common tricks of ecommerce selling is to create urgency by making something appear limited in availability. Its perceived value rises too.

Only 1 in stock – If the stock is fast depleting, customers are motivated to buy. That is why you never see a message that there is excess stock! It’s not motivating at all! So, keeping inventories artificially low on a product page will ensure that customer’s buying decisions are accelerated too. The second method is to create an urgency of time. “Limited time remaining”  or limited time offers are the most powerful tools to get buyers to actually buy. A countdown timer on the product page is a perfect way to implement this.

Loss aversion

Fear of missing out is one of the most common techniques used in marketing. Loss aversion has a very powerful psychological effect. The most common way in which ecommerce companies take advantage of this is by displaying the original price near the discounted price and then point out the savings. The cost of missing out on this savings is greater than the cost of product – that’s the perception that must be created. Another way to implement loss aversion is by creating a best value option. Displaying various similar options at different price points and then indicating the best value option by highlighting it or displaying it in the most popular category.

Risk aversion

While purchasing something online, customers associate a lot of risk associated with it. Especially if it’s the first time purchasing from that online site, risk aversion could greatly help and improve sales. 100% money back guarantee is one of the most common message you see. Also, when customers purchase products with lifetime warranty or a free return policy they feel more secure while buying it.

Abandonment issues

Making checkout smooth and fast is one way to improve sales and reduce shopping cart abandonments. One click purchases reduced number of steps while checking out is a great way to implement it. Further, those carts that are abandoned need follow up emails too! A lot of people need a little nudge to get off the “to buy or not to buy” fence. A simple auto generated email can easily do the task.

Assurance

Many of us – or most of us value outside opinion while purchasing things. Ecommerce stores can capitalize on this and improve sales. If a product is five star rated, we will take a second look at it and customers are more likely to buy those products.
Finally, it’s important to remember that playing with the minds of customers works only until you lure them to buy – your product must also be everything that it says it will be – that’s when your business will see true success!

Image Credit: https://tinyurl.com/qrmkamn