For every commercial transaction made today, there now tends to be a complex and research-exhaustive thought process behind it. The path to consumer-making decisions is variable on account of different personalities and what type of product they are buying, creating a huge impact on the course of eCommerce trends.
To use consumer-making decisions to their benefit, a retailer should be aware of a few things. Product reviews, friends’ opinions and accessibility to view a product page and specifications are all very important as product research defines buying habits online. This applies especially to products widely used in daily life (e.g., computers, cellphones, and televisions) where consumers now typically research online and then buy offline.
The consumer decision-making journey also depends on the personality of the consumer, and whether they shop using intuition alone or by analyzing their options. In both cases, they usually take every single avenue to explore a product including looking at in-store presentation and examining technical specifications online.
An eCommerce retailer needs to look at convenience, alongside product pages that can give browsing users the specs they are searching for and a pricing strategy that doesn’t give leverage to in-store convenience or other online competitors. In many cases, the truth is a customer will purchase the cheapest option available once they made their decision on which product they want to buy.
With high demand products like electronics, consumers tend to lean towards product research to figure out which brand and product capability is right for them. Personal expression products like clothes, jewelry, and furniture usually will make their sales through brand exclusivity and rely more on appearance than functionality, so customers will be paying more attention to the store itself and whether they like what the store has to offer. The more an item depends on functionality, the more product research affects the consumer’s path to making the decision to buy or not. The more an item depends on expression and visual stimulation, the more a consumer will remain loyal to a brand. Such an industry depends on ever-changing trends.
Throughout all of this, buying remains a social experience with most stores employing product reviews and sharing buttons - not to mention friends’ opinions of what looks good. Most eCommerce sites are moving to that trend, including most Magento sites.
