eCommerce Psychology – Why Does Customer Psychology Matter in Retail?

Every eCommerce business and online retailer will have nightmares and stress headaches trying to work out and predict the shopping habits of the average online consumer. If we could tap into the collective thoughts of the purchasing public and crack eCommerce psychology, we could entice any shopper towards any sale, kill bounce rates dead and abandon checkout abandonment for good.  Long story short, understanding online shopping psychology can truly make – or break – a business. We can always dream, right?

Hopefully the following research, put together by the vouchercloud team, will help. By way of a handily designed infographic, you can now discover the influence of site speed, ecommerce design, product reviews, coupons and deals and security on the behaviour of online shoppers and potential ecommerce customers. The information included is designed to help you get one step closer to predicting purchasing patterns, improving conversion rates at every stage of the customer journey, and ensure any major red flags to a customer are anything but present on your platform.

For example, a wait of only three seconds for a page to load will result in a loss of 57% of online consumers – in other words, half of your potential customers will leave your website, because your website dragged its heels. With 80% of those potential customers never to return to your website, you can be sure that they’ll remember that wait as well. When the big brands and household names like Apple and Nike can increase conversions with a simple free delivery code, you really need to make sure the little things work well to compete.

We’d be remiss to mention that coupons and discount codes can help do your business a favour too. Well over half of US internet users will redeem a coupon, be it for online or offline shopping. 4% of shoppers even dedicate an increase in customer satisfaction based solely on a coupon, showing off the benefits of a free delivery code or 10% off to long term returns and continued business.

It’s also all about making the product itself look good online. The average consumer will assess a product within 90 seconds, during which a decision to either purchase or avoid will be made. First impressions matter, and even the small changes can make a huge difference – adding multiple product images, for example, can lead to a 58% increase in conversion rates. Accuracy is also important, as “inaccurate product descriptions”are the key factor for 25% of online returns.

Reviews are a huge part of making a product look good too. 85% of online buyers read reviews before they purchase a product, 79% of which trust those often anonymous online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. Ensuring accurate delivery, quality products with appropriate descriptions and a continuously good service is as key to making a product look good online as anything else, after all (sometimes eCommerce psychology is as simple as making the shopper happy!)

With so many different factors at play, it pays to do your research – literally – so drink in some of our best advice and make your business and ecommerce platforms all the more profitable – with the help of some consumer psychology.

In the below infographic, we’ve covered how all of the above, alongside shipping, payments and security, coupons and deals and cutting checkout abandonment can all influence the psychology of a consumer – and make or break a sale.