AMZ Seller Financing   •   May 27, 2019

Sales is a rather complex process, and quite a lot goes into convincing potential customers to buy from you. Some of the factors that influence customer buying decisions will depend on you, the e-commerce store owner. This can be, for instance, how you optimize your e-commerce checkout to reduce abandoned cart rate.

Others, however, depend on the buyers and have nothing to do with your e-commerce store or the products you offer. Yet, understanding them can help you apply successful marketing strategies and create a message that your potential buyers will be able to connect with.

Key Factors that Affect the Buying Decisions of Your Customers

1. Brand Name and Image

One of the first things that you should do for your business is to work on your branding. This involves your brand name, logo, mission, presentation, and more. Understanding who our ideal buyers are is the first step to successful branding.

Brand name may not seem as significant, but it can absolutely affect customer buying decisions. It can represent what your brand stands for and what to expect from your products.

2. Brand Reputation

Word of mouth marketing has always been effective. While the way it’s done has changed, its effectiveness has not. Therefore, be conscious of how you talk to your customers and followers on social media. What they say about you and what reviews they leave can determine the success of your sales.

For instance, 88% of buyers trust online reviews, and 74% of buyers admit that word of mouth affects their buying choices. There also have been instances when brands have crossed influencers who then shared their experiences with their followers. The followers frequently side with the influencers and choose not to purchase from brands that these influencers do not get along with.

3. Product Placement

Did you know that products that are appealing to children are always placed at a lower level in supermarkets so that they would be at their eye level?

Or have you thought why small items like chewing gum and sweet treats are found at cash registers? People may become bored and follow an impulse during a long wait at the cash register. Or they may be afraid of being judged by others and try to avoid their children from taking a tantrum because they were told “no.”

Product placement matters. In online marketplaces like Amazon, products that appear on the first pages tend to get the most attention and, consequently, more sales.

If you own an e-commerce website, it’s best to make your most successful and appealing products easily accessible.

4. Scarcity

People tend to place a higher value on a product if they perceive it as rare. They believe that they are going to miss out on an opportunity if they don’t act now. They also associate scarcity with higher quality.

Below are some ways of creating an impression of scarcity and influencing customer buying decisions:

• “last day: 50% off everything”
• “only 2 left in stock”
• “a person in San Francisco, CA, just bought”
• “the deal ends in …”
• “limited time offer”
• “limited edition”
• “out of stock” for specific sizes
• “enjoy it while it lasts”

Next time you shop online, look for messages like these and observe how they make you feel. This will help you put yourself in your customers’ shoes, optimize your message, and boost your sales.

5. Authority

Are you more likely to buy just any coffee or Nespresso endorsed by George Clooney? Using celebrities in ads is a way of influencing customer buying decisions.

While contracting celebrities may be out of your budget, you can invest in influencer marketing. Many brands are actually choosing influencers over celebrities due to higher engagement and conversion rates.

6. Personal Factors

Things you bought at the age of 15 would differ from those you’d buy when you are 30. You would also not market sustainable cleaning products to suburban housewives in the same way that you would market funky T-shirts to college students who love punk music.

It is important to understand the age gender, lifestyle, values, financial status, and motivations of your buyers. This will allow you to craft your product descriptions, develop advertisements, design your website, and write social media pages in a way that would appeal to your target audience.

7. Social Factors

People are social beings and that dramatically impacts customer buying decisions. As a matter of fact, as much as 92% of buyers admit trusting their friends and family more than advertising. Social media platforms know that too. Algorithms of all major social media platforms prioritize the content of peers over that of brands.

What can you do as an e-commerce store owner?

Perhaps you can include images or footage of family and friends on your blog or advertising. Or maybe you should become more social on your social media platforms and form a community.

Think of creative ways of how you can integrate our need for socialization into your advertising, and your efforts are likely to pay off.

Feel free to check out the other articles on our blog as well as download our FREE e-book on how you can fund your e-commerce business. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and subscribe to our mailing list to get the latest news and offers!