Boost E-Commerce Sales by Understanding How Customers Think

E-commerce businesses face many challenges. And trying to compete with the giants can be overwhelming if you don't have a robust marketing strategy. The ultimate aim of all marketing activities should be to smooth the decision-making curve and shape the consumer journey proactively towards buying products you want them to purchase. Putting some science into it can help the process.

Marketers have put a lot of science into persuasive marketing for influencing consumer behavior. Among all the methods used, targeting cognitive biases is the most popular and time-tested strategy. In this post, we will discuss how to use cognitive biases in e-commerce marketing.

What are cognitive biases?

We make about 35,000 decisions every day, and that's only possible with the help of some shortcuts. For example, social media mogul Mark Zuckerberg never has to decide what to wear each day since he always wears the same grey t-shirt and blue jeans combo.

To avoid the stress which can come from decision-making, evolution has bestowed our minds with cognitive biases. These biases shorten the time necessary to make a decision by skipping cognitive processes through memory and perception. Cognitive biases, also known as mental shortcuts, are oriented towards making our lives more logical and involving less effort. Here's how you can use them for marketing a small e-commerce business.

Confirmation bias

People believe what they want to believe and confirmation bias drives this instinct. Our minds will process new information based on our existing set of beliefs. In e-commerce marketing, resonating with the buyer persona and staying consistent will allow you to use confirmation bias with customers before and after making a sale.

Use the confirmation bias in the following areas to reassure buyers they are in control while making purchases:

• Retargeting campaigns

• SSL certificate (HTTPS URL) to mark your store as safe

• Consistency between PPC ads and product landing pages

• Privacy policy statements and security badges

• A hassle-free return policy

• Congratulatory messages on the final purchase confirmation screen

• Confirmation emails with positive customer reviews

The decoy effect

Many online stores will place a third asymmetrically positioned product on their landing pages to increase billing size. While customers are bound to choose the more affordable product among two available options, putting a decoy on the page will alter the customers' decision. Here's an example:

Suppose you are looking for a dinner set and you have the following options:

12-piece dinner set from Brand A @ $30

20-piece dinner set from Brand B @ $55

18-piece dinner set from Brand X @ $95

If there wasn't a third option, you likely would have purchased the dinner set from Brand A, finding it to be the most cost-effective. However, adding the asymmetrically positioned Brand X makes Brand B appear to the most attractive, yet affordable option, ultimately increasing its sales.