Marketing For the “Impulse Buy” in a Digital Shopping Environment

As our collective shopping experience continues to migrate to a digital ecosystem - further supplanting visits to physical stores - buying behaviors are changing and evolving. Impulse buying – grabbing an unplanned item while on a planned shopping trip – is one of those behaviors. Most of us (80% according to Invesp) engage in some kind of spur-of-the-moment buying; studies show it happens on 3 out of every 5 shopping trips. The thinking, behaviors, and circumstances surrounding these (some say irrational) purchases are rooted in psychology and driven by emotion.

In aggregate, capturing revenue from impulse purchases becomes significantly important for some sectors. For many retailers and brands, their marketers labor over getting the right product in the right place at the right time. It has become part science and part art form – and been continuously refined over decades. The front check-out area of grocery, drug, convenience stores show how tempting guilty pleasures and new discoveries to shoppers’ baskets is a big deal. Discretionary packaged goods, beverage, and snack & confectionary companies now rely on these last-minute purchases for upwards of 15% of their revenue. But there is risk of losing these sales opportunities from the growing number of online purchases, which tend to be more pre-planned.

How can e-commerce marketers drive impulse purchases in an online setting; what tools and techniques can they use? I recently worked on a consulting project with a CPG company that examined this very question. We studied how to crack the code on what drives impulse buying online, and which marketing and merchandising tactics can evoke those buying behaviors. What key success factors, tools and techniques can best facilitate this outcome? How can we measure the success? Below I highlight 4 approaches to enhancing impulse buying in E-commerce:

1.)     Understand the Mindset

Understand what is driving your customer’s impulse buying in general, and how it's affected by a digital environment. This involves understanding who is doing the shopping, when, why, and their mindset and emotional circumstances surrounding the shopping trip. For example, a shopper who – at the end of a long work day – might be tired and in a vulnerable emotional state where “treating themselves to a snack” might be a deserving add the grocery list. Perhaps the ambitious, aspiring shopper is making a long-desired purchase, and celebrates the moment by giving a fun “gimmick” item a try. Study the shopping behaviors of your customer base, and understand how different items get into their basket - both planned and unplanned.

2.)     Merchandising, Messaging, and Motivation

While retail environments have limited merchandising opportunities to position upsells and impulse buys (i.e. the checkout line), online stores actually have several ways to dynamically put buying ideas and suggestions in front of shoppers – along with specific messaging, offers, and pricing. Examples include cart upsells, real-time offers on product pages, suggestions based on cart contents or bundle ideas based on other purchases. Another way is suggesting add-on items to hit the free shipping threshold. The capability to dynamically present and promote just the right product to match up with a shopper’s profile and particular shopping basket – is actually an advantageous marketing opportunity vs a brick-and-mortar environment, where a limited number of items can be presented at any one time.

3.)     Test, Learn, Repeat

This is where the ability to measure nearly every aspect of a digital shopping journey is really helpful, and having an organized and disciplined testing and data gathering methodology is highly important. E-commerce strategists can drastically speed up and replicate the trial-and-error nature of finding out which tactics work. We can look at the types of products added to the cart before checkout (and in which order), and study attach rates for items added during the checkout process. This can especially effective with the help of machine learning, which can rapidly run multi-variate tests and optimize product offers in real time. One-to-one marketing strategies, which are heavily dependent on customer data, could also help identify a shopper’s propensity for impulse buys. These approaches can be very effective and allow for some creative and innovative marketing ideas.

4.)     Facilitate Immediate Gratification with Quick and Seamless Order Fulfillment

Or as close to it as possible. Impulse buys are all about the desire for instant gratification, so the delay in getting them into the customer’s hands presents an inherent challenge for e-commerce channels vs. traditional retail. However, the rapid evolution of new logistics and delivery options are helping e-commerce sellers drastically reduce the potential fulfillment and delivery time. Same-day delivery is a growing feature – being led by none other than Amazon. Also, many retailers now feature “buy online, pick-up in store” (BOPIS) as a way for shoppers to quickly get their merchandise. Curbside pickup for groceries is a form of BOPIS that actually creates an opportunity to suggest adding impulse items to a customer’s basket. Geo-fencing technology can play a role in this as well – with mobile push notifications suggesting last-minute impulse items just as the shopper is approaching the store pick-up area. Lockers and drone deliveries are other examples of emerging ways to provide that rapid gratification for shoppers.

It’s essential for E-commerce retailers and brands – and their marketing teams – to be actively thinking about how to drive impulse buying online, as it represents a material source of revenue. The many factors surrounding the instance of an impulse buy (shopper psychology, product merchandising & placement, offer management, and speed of gratification) create complex challenges in an e-commerce environment. Developing ideas, strategies, and tactics around these topics I’ve described above will help us better understand how to preserve these valuable opportunities as shopping continues to migrate online.

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