Behavioral economics, psychology, and an algorithm for personalized recommendations . These are the three keys that Amazon uses to make its ecommerce website one of the most important money-making machines in the world.
However, not everything is as innocent as it seems. The design, composition of your website and each of its buttons and / or options are carefully placed to push the buyer to buy more and faster .
Therefore, in this guide we provide you with some of the main tricks that Amazon is using. In this way, if you know them, you will be able to buy with your head, in a more leisurely way and spending only on what you need.
FEELING OF SCARCITY
Amazon clearly shows how many items of a certain product are left in Stock. This contributes to increasing the perceived value of said merchandise, appealing to the logic of “if there are few left, it is good”.
However, it is a totally subjective reasoning and, in addition, you will most likely be able to find the same product, or a very similar one, if you continue to fiddle through the Amazon search engine.
On the one hand, the stock indicator is an exercise in transparency, however, it also pushes users to make an impulsive purchase since, if there are few items left, their perceived value increases.
HURRY UP
One of the keys to selling a product is the Internet is to rush the customer. The faster and easier the purchase process, the more likely it is that the sale will be successful.
On the contrary, if the buying process is slow, tedious or cumbersome, there is a greater chance that the buyer will think twice, back off or forget because something else has distracted them.
Amazon is a true expert in rushing. This is achieved with flash offers (those that have a countdown next to their price) and thanks to the instant purchase buttons.
Traditionally, Amazon allowed you to put an item in their basket. Once inside said basket, you could review the products that you had put there to check that everything is in order. With the instant purchase button, all these steps disappear and all you need is a simple confirmation.
DISCOUNTS?
The title of this section appears between question marks and no, it is not a typographical error.
Discounts are one of the oldest trading hooks in the world. However, Amazon is capable of taking them to another level. In addition to a category of “deals of the day” and “flash deals”, the Amazon website has a curious way of displaying the price of products.
Instead of directly indicating the final price, the Amazon website breaks it down into three categories. Recommended price (supposedly at the price that should be sold), Final price (what you are going to pay for a product) and “you save” (the difference between the two expressed both in euros and as a percentage).
Nowhere does it say that these products are actually discounted or discounted. However, the customer has the perception of making a smart purchase and saving money by acquiring it in this way.
In fact, it is common to find products that, practically perpetually, are sold at a price considerably lower than the “recommended price”, as, for example, has been happening with this electrostimulator for almost two years .
PERSONALIZATION
The personalization experience on Amazon is one of its keys to success. In this sense, one of the keys is that the search engine is tremendously complex and learns very quickly about you and your tastes.
If you have never entered Amazon or if you enter from a computer or mobile without cookies, without logging in, without browsing history and using a VPN (which after all is as if you were doing it for the first time), your website will only It will need you to do a little scrolling and a few clicks to start showing you a unique and personalized shopping experience (with some products). If you do this experiment from scratch with a friend, you will see how each time browsing Amazon will be more and more different.
Those who have an Amazon account or who use the page repeatedly from the same terminal will check how the page will show them on a recurring basis (and even in advertisements outside of Amazon’s own website) the products on which they have clicked and have I’ve been looking at it for the longest time as a strategy to entice you into buying them.
For example, if you click on this link , it will take you to a generic search for “sneakers” on the Amazon website. If a friend enters that same link, the products that he will show you will be different.
This feature is useful for the consumer because it helps them find products that they might like. On the other hand, it helps us to make the occasional impulsive purchase of something we really don’t need.
