Modern Buyers Behavior: What Influences a Shopper’s Mind?

The modern customer is much smarter nowadays, which means they will go to any extent to get the worth of every penny they are spending online. Retailers, on the other hand are trying their best to match the offer the online customer wants but still failing to earn the revenue benefits. Nobody knows what is going on in a consumer’s mind but we do know that they crave for more.

So we ask what is it that influences a modern consumer’s behavior?

We have researched and found some key things that dominates the mind of the customer when shopping online. Read and let us know if you agree with these:

Do not Chase Them

Do you like your screen being bombarded with ads? But still you see plenty of them being displayed when you exit a shopping website. And not just this, it follows you wherever you go.

On the contrary, this has been one of the tactics used by retailers to bring (chase) the potential customer back into the buying process. Online ecommerce business are continuously using remarketing strategies, ads and inbound marketing to keep the customer in loop and engaged with their offering. What they don’t realize is that these techniques neither help the customer nor their business. Modern day customer considers these strategies to be annoying and unnecessary and believes in a transparent shopping experience.

Value for Money

This has been a major change in consumer’s behavior in the last couple of years. With time, the consumer has become more aware of the availability of brands, their popularity among the online shoppers and if their product is cost-effective or not.

It has become a habit among online shoppers to compare prices of the same product on different shopping platforms in order to get the best buy. Lately, they have also started finding alternatives to the brands they were previously shopping as they don’t find them durable and profitable. Customer loyalty has decreased and fellow shopper’s opinion has gained more weightage from shopping experience point of view.

Educate them Rather Than Making Profits

We are in an age where information gathering is the most important attribute while purchasing anything online. Most consumers in today’s world do an online research for their queries and chase the information they need. This is reason most brands and retailers are putting their money in creation of blogs and DIY videos that are helping people solve day to day problems. Anything that answers user’s questions is regarded as a rich source of information and earns the trust of consumers.

It is quite common in case of recipes and protein based diet. When we are making a new dish at home, we usually look up the internet for the recipe. Either we come across a blog or we rely on a video that shows us how to make it in simple steps. Similarly, we have been depending on blogs, YouTube, nutritionists and fitness influencers for making high-protein based meals at home.

All of this has resulted in brands hiring influencers, starting YouTube channels, blogs, to diversify their business and gain popularity among consumers. 2020 is the age of DIY and if you don’t put yourself on the map, you might lose sight of what’s coming.

Environmental Footprint in a Shopping Community

Consumers shopping online doesn’t just wants to shop online, rather they want to be a part of the system, part of the community. A community that connects shopping to global issues like pollution, sustainable environment, global warming, logistics demand, non-recyclable elements, and more. More and more shoppers now-a-days are opting for sustainable fashion along with the recycling of old clothes. Additionally, they are also using the new Click & Collect store service which helps prevent carbon emission and reduce the logistics demand on supplier. Consumers are also urging retailers to reduce the use of plastic packaging and paper invoice. Eco-friendly is the word to be spread.

Quick & Reliable Services

Free shipping has always been one of the topmost thing running in the minds of an online shopper. It is also one of the prime factors that influence the buying process. Not getting Free Shipping on an order usually results in the user exiting without completing the purchase. Reliable services also include a high-quality quick-response chat support which helps the user in communicating with the experts, an authentic newsletter service which is more about the offers and less about brand promotion, a shopping App for users shopping on-the-go, and creating a shoppers community for suggestions and feedback on products.

Admiration = Influence

Consumer’s admiration of a certain person can influence his/her decision making. What we are trying to say here is that people follow industry influencers on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. These influencers work across various shopping categories like Beauty, Fashion, Food, and Technology and their opinions have a great effect on their followers (consumers). These professionals work with local as well as renowned brands and share their tastes and opinions about them with their thousands and millions of followers on their social channels. These opinions decide the trends in any industry and encourages consumers to buy.

Data Protection

You will not see people talking about online theft, data privacy and security but in reality, data protection is highly significant to them. A secure shopping platform with authentic payment methods is the modern buyer shops at. The data indicates that over 60% of people are worried about their data being fetched by online retailers. It has also been observed that a consumer checks the data policy of the websites where they make purchases.

Trust Leads to Loyalty

Loyalty is a two-way street. Let’s suppose, the consumers are always shopping for a particular brand but if that brand is not rewarding them for their loyalty, they will certainly switch. This behavior will lead to consumer losing interest in that brand over the time and switch to a new brand which is more loyal and more rewarding.

Trust is one of the biggest foundation in the online retail world and the most satisfying one. If a business continues to provide consumers with special privileges, they will never leave you and in return will bring in more consumer through recommendation and word of mouth marketing. So, it is important to keep the consumer happy by offering them exclusive discounts, birthday gifts, and VIP rewards. Because Loyalty never dies.