The digital shopper has evolved in recent years. The Internet is witnessing the change in consumer behavior patterns. Online sales maintain an upward curve. If before we used the network to obtain information and make a later visit in the physical store, now we do most of the purchases online. The decision-making map is not a straight road. But rather a road with various alternative routes where different agents come into play. This complexity generates that the behavioral sciences take relevance within the market studies.
Companies are aware that to anticipate the needs of customers they need to know them. Google together with a team of behavioral specialists have carried out an investigation with the purpose of discovering what is hidden behind making purchasing decisions.
Decision making: A look from behavioral science
From a psychological perspective, multiple factors are considered to come into play when choosing two products that meet the same need. Imagine that we are in front of the supermarket shelf with two identical packages of detergent, but each one of a specific brand. What elements go into our brain to decide on a specific one?
Attitudes, beliefs, and lessons learned from past experiences could carry much of the decisive weight of our choice. All human behaviors develop based on experience. Which means that the more favorable the outcome of an action, the more likely it is to be replicated. If something works, why change? This would be the central premise by which whenever we make the usual food purchase we end up with the same products in the cart, week after week.
The evaluations that we issue about the products configure a scale of loyalty in the relationship with the brands, where the fidelity of the belief in what is favorable, durable or of quality walks on the rope of fragility. The fine line that separates what we believe to be harmful from benefit.
The perceptions and motivations add to the components of determination in purchases. Both lead people to act differently in the same situation. Perceptions are the door of expression to the chain of internal values. A computation of stimuli guided by internal judgments. In response, motivation is the driving force behind the ultimate behavior.
The Google study
With the aim of understanding current online consumer habits in Spain and deciphering the mysterious journey of customers through the framework of the purchase decision map. The Google team analyzed the behavior of 10,000 Spanish buyers on a set of 100,000 simulated purchases in 10 different product categories.
The methodology used analyzed the total of behaviors exercised by the participants together with the review of existing literature on behavioral science. Alternative scenarios were concealed to discover the weight of the cognitive biases that appear in the process of purchasing the products. Internalized biases long before Internet access.
During the experiment, the participants selected their preferred brands from a selection of products. A series of biases were then included to discover their reactions. The results show that customers opt for brands that do not attack their previous mindsets. All those products that demonstrate advantages over their biases.
How do we apply it?
Marketing professionals have at their disposal different mechanisms with which to guide the consumer towards a satisfactory final purchase. At Somos Sinapsis, specialists in digital environments, achieving excellence in customer service is one of our priorities. Some roadmaps are derived from the study:
Guarantee the visibility of the brand within the market. Be actively present in the client’s life.
Apply the principles of behavioral science in a respectful way. Guarantee customer satisfaction. Tear down the walls, create relationships beyond the purely commercial.
Decrease the customer journey time. Reduce the exposure of other distracting elements that could create barriers between the customer and the purchase.