Consumer Behavior in eCommerce: How to Prepare for Every Type of Customers

How interesting and useful is consumer behavior analysis?

Analyzing customer behavior provides exciting and useful information, such as that 48% of Gen Z shoppers use social media for product research. In contrast, 44% still use search engines for the same purpose.

Let’s guess you have ensured high-quality content, promotional offers, ads, reviews, social proof, etc.

Most eCommerce businesses do this. What many of them lack is the proper analysis.

When you plan to run your business strategically, you need to know your customers first. To know your customers, collect information, and then start analyzing.

Understanding consumer behavior is the first step that prepares you to help the customers make the correct decision.

Consumer behavior in eCommerce plays a vital role.

In this blog, you can explore the explicated version of an overall view of consumer behavior in eCommerce: what is it, how it influences eCommerce business, what are the factors behind different types of consumer behavior, how you can make your eCommerce business get ready to serve customers with particular shopping behaviors.

What is consumer behavior

Consumer behavior is the study of how consumers search for, choose, decide to purchase, and use products or services including the psychological, personal, or social reasons behind the activities.

When you study buyer personas, you get a clear idea about who the shoppers are, whereas, in consumer behavior analysis, you know how and why they purchase.

Consumer behavior is the overall study of how consumers react throughout the customer journey.

What factors influence customer behavior

A customer’s buying behavior is a result of years of experience driven by the combination of self-choice and the surroundings. A buyer doesn’t always follow any straight rules while shopping.

A few factors make a buyer possess a consistent shopping behavior over time.

Let’s dive into the factors to separate each behavior so that the preparation works like magic.

Psychological factors: ones that make a web of determination

These are the primary factors a shopper possesses naturally in mind while making a purchase decision. It might be the consumer’s beliefs, perceptions, way of reading information, the motivation behind a purchase, etc.

Some follow brands with more popularity, some like buying from brands that have stable pricing, and some get convinced by colorful visuals— all of those are examples of psychological factors.

Personal factors: every consumer has their reasons

Everybody has personal reasons behind doing everything, and so do shoppers. This includes liking and disliking, habit, etc. 

For example, there are two T-shirts: one is yellow and the other is red. A buyer might understand the red one is more fitting but the yellow one reminds one of the college soccer team which brings colorful memories in seconds. That’s why choosing the yellow one is the shopper’s reason.

Social and cultural factors: consistently convincing the consumers 

The success of influencer marketing and user-generated content tells us how society is influencing purchases. Seeing the next-door neighbor or a Facebook friend using an attractive product just works like a hook.

Cultural factors also widely manipulate buyers while purchasing, Sometimes buyers stop purchasing which doesn’t suit the culture they are used to; in the same way, sometimes following cultural trends can be the reason for purchasing products that usually might not be popular for them on an individual level.

Financial factors: matters for many

Neither every wish is purchased nor every purchased thing is a wish. Shoppers’ financial condition can escalate their buying intent. Being financially unstable, many buyers keep their loved products untouched. On the other hand, financially stable people more often purchase somewhat needed products as they need them insanely.

Suppose you are purchasing from a wholesaler, and you got a bundle for $600 when your budget was up to $1000. No wonder you can experiment with more products in the $400 you saved while purchasing the initial item, as long as you have financial restrictions.

How consumer behavior impacts your eCommerce business

Your marketing and sales strategy will not work unless aligned with customer behavior. More importantly, every consumer has a unique buying strategy like you have selling strategies.

Increases and decreases followers

There are plenty of reasons for a shopper to follow or unfollow your brand. The readiness of your eCommerce store to add value to this variety of customers makes your store stand or get separated.

Influences sales and stock

You can’t expect that one type of customer will buy from your brand even if you sell one type of product. This wide range of buyers have a wide range of behaviors which your eCommerce store should comply with. If your store can’t satisfy every buying intent, the sales graph will automatically go down.

Impacts reviews and ratings

It’s the after-shopping reviews that determine whether a buyer is satisfied with a product or not. For example, you can satisfy a buyer with cordial customer support even after a late delivery. Maybe the buyer prioritizes quick responses over quick delivery.

Impacts marketing strategies

You are less likely to bring changes in the marketing strategies when everything goes well. But what if the sales or revenue graph radically fluctuates? And, especially when it’s because of not meeting the expectations of a particular group of buyers? Maybe it’s the lack of value in the social media posts that can’t engage the Insta followers. In this case, bringing changes to your social media marketing strategy is the answer.

Impacts customer loyalty and retention

Once a group of buyers finds your brand particularly set for their shopping intent, it’s not too far to make them loyal to your brand. On the other hand, missing out on the basic points to make conversion from buyers with a particular shopping behavior will fall apart from your sales projection.

Types of consumer behavior in eCommerce and ways to serve each type

The same product, with the same description, in the same marketplace, possessing the same price, can be sold 10 times for 10 reasons. That happens because of the diversity in consumer behavior.

Amid a crowd of customer behavior, a few are chosen here in which you can get a point-specific outlook on how to make your eCommerce store fit for the waves of customers all around the internet.

Casual shopping behavior

For casual buyers, an eCommerce site is no less than a social media site. They love to wander and see products, reviews, pictures, etc. The purchase ratio is too low in casual shopping. Again, they have proper knowledge about a brand. If any of your friends use to buy casually, you can ask for a suggestion regarding a common interest, surely you will get a quick response.

You can apply a few strategies to ensure that your business holds a strong command over casual buyers. Whenever they buy something from your industry, they will consider you first.

Engagement is the key: optimize your eCommerce business with customer engagement at its best

Pursue interactive marketing: know the pain points and be prepared for options

Appear everywhere: run omnichannel marketing and grab permanent attention

Make the users feel important: give room for user-generated content

Close the alternative doors: include realistic and relevant comparison

Habitual shopping behavior

Shopping is a concept that varies from person to person. Some consider it a necessity, many do it as a hobby, and some may possess the habit of shopping. Habitual shopping is neither way too limited nor too broad. 

People with shopping habits can’t resist finding out reasons or necessities for their upcoming shopping hours. They used to try different brands, product categories, and pricing ranges. It’s like sports to athletes, and books to readers.

To make sure your brand can attract and engage habitual shoppers, you need to possess some key points that can make them purchase easily.

• Holding a good position amid competitors
• Possessing different types of products
• Availability of stock
• Top-notch user-interface

Impulse shopping behavior

It’s quite an unpredictable shopping behavior that has no specific reason. This type of buyer can shop from your site only because of a good image, a review, a social media video, etc. They don’t need much information or cross-checking and don’t hesitate to purchase instantly. Their strong instinct and habit of quick buying incite them, as does seeing others buy a product.

• Use a refer-a-friend technique
• Add exciting video content
• Outreach influencers
• Focus on exciting promotional marketing
• Let the buyers apply promo code when applicable

Necessity-based shopping behavior

Necessity knows no law — we heard it many times, and it’s quite relatable to necessity-driven shoppers. This shopping behavior makes buyers buy exactly what they need, not everything they like. Buyers of this category are quite conscious about what they shop for. You cannot manipulate them into buying any product they are not likely to buy.

You need to show your specialty on what ground your products fulfill the needs amid the huge crowd of competitors. These are like:

• Research your target audience
• Analyze buyer persona
• Find out the market gaps
• Pick the products with a unique value proposition

This type of buyer has many options in the market, and most of the time, they determine what to purchase earlier. So, your products must be a customer’s favorite before being added to the cart.

Informational shopping behavior

The information-seeker buyer never buys a product even with a 1% confusion. No vague statement can be useful for convincing them. They investigate every ins and outs. If you miss something to put in the description, they will seek that in any other product. 

An information-seeker shopper will look for more than just the product description; they will also look for reviews, relevant content, and ads.

• Optimize the product description pages with relevant information
• Include every ins and outs of the products
• Don’t repeat the same information, readers get bored
• Don’t exaggerate info 
• Highlight the most-loved features in ads

Remember, the buyers will ask friends, google, YouTube, AI, and whoever is possible to get the correct information about the product or brand. So, make sure your brand is optimized, decorated, trusted, reviewed, rated, referred, and spoken.

Situational shopping behavior

Every customer doesn’t shop for hobbies, wishes, or experiments. Sudden situations always make shoppers buy more, depending on whether they are going against their will. 

A new mother might not know more about baby products. But the circumstance will make her know everything overnight that she ought to know before shopping. Yeah, you read it right, overnight. That’s the actual scenario of situational shopping.

That’s where the readiness of a baby shop helps much. The same applies to the stores of every category.

• Provide equal attention to the low-selling products too
• It might be a few but try getting positive reviews
• Fulfill the category with relevant products
• Decorate the store with complementary products
• Hook customers to bigger purchases from smaller ones

Discount-based shopping behavior

Except for some immense necessities, there is a group of buyers who always try to shop when it’s a sale. Buyers can access plenty of options, they easily get some discounts on certain periods. Especially when it’s not a basic need, waiting for promotional discounts or a seasonal sale is worth it.

There is a combo of three tricky but effective strategies that help an eCommerce shop serve its selling purpose during a sale which makes serious results during promotional campaigns.

1. Shout out before the sale starts
2. Let the buyers shout once the sale starts
3. Let the shoppers make a wishlist before the next sale starts

Brand-loyal shopping behavior

This group of buyers are more fans than shoppers. They never change their mind to explore new brands once they become loyal to a particular brand. If a loyal customer base leaves a brand, then be sure there must be an unignorable reason.

Customer loyalty is a precious gift for a brand but it’s not so simple to achieve that. A typical brand may take years of consistency to gain the loyalty of a very small percentage of the whole consumer base.

• Focus on the customer’s lifetime value
• Keep up the faith in your brand and work on improving the brand
• Set examples of discontinuing unworthy products (if essential)
• Focus on evolving rather than competing
• Surprise your loyal customers with amazing gifts
• Pay attention to every loyal customer, read their review, complaints, and recommendations
• Listen to the customers’ complaints and suggestions

Wrap up

Running your eCommerce business in favor of every type of consumer is like running the air conditioner at a temperature that every coworker loves. It’s hard to practically bring comfort to everyone but never impossible. What if you can ensure the coworkers who sweat more have a rechargeable fan and those who get frozen wear sweatshirts? 

In the same way, you can make your eCommerce store concentrate on succeeding in meeting customer happiness with ultimate diversified solutions. Here comes the fact we’ve talked about earlier, you need to analyze and experiment in a way that there remains no gap in reading what they want and why they want.