Consumer behavior is an important factor for any business to consider for their e-commerce website.
When a potential buyer arrives at an eCommerce website, a pattern of predictable decision-making processes unfold and creates the following information seeking behaviors:
Locate:
The visitor’s ability to search and/or navigate through your website to find the specific solution for their need.
Verify:
This is the visitor’s ability to validate that the service or item meets the required specifications.
Monitor:
The ability to receive updates or revisit the product or service.
Compare:
Today’s online consumers often research their need across the web to identify similarities & differences. Offering a comparison tool on your website reduces the chance of the user leaving your website to complete their research.
Comprehend:
This is the visitor’s perception of the information available on the website. This is a key behavior when developing your content strategy. Does your presentation of the product or service answer all of the pertinent questions, or does it drive the user to other websites to fill in the blanks?
Explore:
The user will typically engage in a deeper research of product influencers to validate that their findings aligns with the expectations of the user. For example, have others found your product or service to be a solution to their problem or symptom?
Analyze:
The user will typically review all of the information they have gathered in its entirety. This is a key behavior to consider when developing a content strategy.
Evaluate:
The user will decide if the product or service provides direct and indirect value.
Synthesize:
The final information seeking behavior includes factoring all information in aggregate. This is a key point when developing strategies to deliver concise content and drill-path continuity.
Understanding the purchase funnel is the first step toward influencing consumer behavior. Ultimately, this information can drive more revenue and should be leveraged when creating content and user experience strategies that delivers concise and cohesive solutions to the user.
Your digital marketing strategy can be deployed to address all of these consumer behaviors and improve your website’s performance.
There are implications from these consumer behaviors in the areas of:
Content Strategy:
Ensure your website answers all of the questions of potential buyers.
Conversion Funnel Optimization:
Pages are optimized to ensure all answers are easily found and that navigation to supporting areas is easy. This step is crucial so buyers can find the information that they need to make a buying decision.
Validation tools:
Provide the visitor with tools and resources like Customer Service, Comparison Pages, Testimonials and Case Study Proof Points to validate their conclusions to keep the visitor on your eCommerce website.
What kinds of consumer behavior has shown up in your experience with e-commerce sites? Share your observations in the comments!