The popularity of the World Wide Web today undeniably serves as the catalyst for online businesses’ growth. From its conception, the idea of online shopping grew rapidly and millions of online shoppers nowadays are fully accepting this revolutionary method of purchasing goods. Besides, the shopper’s selection is significantly broader than its brick and mortar counterpart.
With the existence of copious online shoppers today, a lot of individuals are trying to understand their behavior when it comes to selecting a product over another. Usually, the people behind these studies are market analysts and psychologists. With the intention of knowing the shopper’s impetuses in preferring a certain product, various factors should be considered prior to the study- age, sex, culture, country, availability of resources, and social amenity. Hence, the driving forces of online shoppers when they are faced with product selection are as follows:
Availability of Budget
There are three types of shoppers who usually browse online shops today. The first type is characterized by those individuals who want to broaden their knowledge about a product but is not interested in purchasing it. The second type is those who want that item but has insufficient funds. The last type is the individual who likes that item, has the funds, but trying to see other options as well. The available budget of online shoppers tends to significantly affect their purchasing decision. Even though they have the money on hand, a rational and wise buyer will think twice if he or she will spend the money.
Faddy Items or Gadgets
According to online surveys, 90% of online shoppers today are greatly influenced by all sorts of advertisements, media exposure, and latest trends when purchasing items or gadgets online. This signifies that most of them wish to hold a piece of the latest stuff. Psychologists explained this behavior as one of the natural desires of man- the desire to be on top or ahead of others.
Product Specifications
Once the shoppers face a scrupulous task in choosing between items, they usually compare the product specifications. In this process, the traditional “compare and contrast” is commonly utilized. Normally, if they are not familiar with Internet slangs or terms used in specific field like technology and communications, shoppers will use popular search engines such as Google or Yahoo! to familiarize themselves with these terms. At the end of the day, shoppers incline to favor the product that possesses more advanced and higher specifications.
Brand Name
Most shoppers tend to establish strong preference on a certain brand especially if they know that their products are tried and tested. Apart from durability, product appearance and usability helps a brand to be famous. It depends actually on how multinational companies employ their global marketing strategies.
Product Reviews
Lastly, before online shoppers make their final purchasing decision, they will try to search for quality product reviews first. These reviews reveal the pros and cons of the product that are usually not present in the product specifications. At the end of the review, the author will give his/her final verdict if it’s worth the money or not. Hence, shoppers will gain a comprehensive knowledge about the product that will help them to decide whether to buy or not.
