You will be surprised by the tricks that lead you to decide impulsively on the internet

When the temperatures rise, people are encouraged to think about the summer and go snooping on the net different options to enjoy the holidays. Everything is still uncertain, but the thought gladdens the mood. Suddenly, a hostel appears on the screen to which we had already cast our eyes more than once. The web indicates that there is only one room left for the scheduled date and that twelve other people are watching it at this time. The offer is so good that we do not even consider that the previous information is uncertain. It is the chosen one and we want to reserve it now. A few moments later the purchase is made. Was it really what we wanted? Why have not we even considered the other options we had in mind? Was there really only one room?

It’s late for the laments

A team of researchers from the University of Michigan has analyzed 200 of the major retail stores in the network and then asked consumers what tools would be useful to curb impulse purchases. From his study it is clear that this type of pages contains an average of 19 strategies that can encourage impulse purchases, including discounts and sales, product ratings and interactive screens that allow users, for example, to zoom in or turn on product photography. .

At the head of these virtual supermarkets are Macys.com, OpticsPlanet.com, Amazon.com, Newegg.com and Target.com. In each of them, the team identified more than 30 functions that could contribute to a hasty decision. “Many consumers are familiar with the marketing tactics that they could push to buy in a traditional store, but the novelty in the internet is the amount of information that electronic retailers have about their consumers or other data in real time, such as the exact number of products left in stock or the number of customers who also have that product in their shopping cart at this time, “says Carol Moser, lead author of the study and a PhD student at the School of Information of the University. from Michigan. It is an information that the people responsible for these pages present as useful for the user, but it really encourages the impulsive purchase of products that perhaps did not deserve so much the consumer’s penalty or that could even make them feel bad afterwards.

Of the 200 retail websites that researchers selected to study, 192 contained what researchers call socially influencing characteristics, that is, they recommend products based on what other people buy.

The trick of scarcity

One of the most repeated strategies is to increase the sense of urgency of the buyer (69%) by using functions such as discounts for a limited time with chronometers that count downwards. 67% resorted to the idea of ​​scarcity with low stock warnings or exclusive product offerings. “One of the challenges that consumers face when they connect online is that they do not know what is true or not,” says researcher Sarita Schoenebeck, co-author of this work.