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I wasn’t planning on recording any podcast for a few days but I just had an experience as an Amazon buyer that is very important for Amazon sellers to understand.
Psychology is very fascinating to me and it should be to you as well. There are different parts to the Amazon supply chain and psychology plays a major role in many of these. The aspects that I am most fluent in are negotiations and selling/marketing. What makes consumers buy and what makes consumers attracted to your projects?
Recently we talked about message to market match and that if someone is looking to buy a red dog bowl and you are specifically selling a red dog bowl then they are much more likely to buy your product. This is a very powerful concept. This can be the basis for an incredible business. The other thing we talked about was Know, Like, and Trust.
Seeing this from the Buyer’s Perspective
The other day, I was going to print some music from my Brother printer and I was getting an error telling me to change my toner. I didn’t want to deal with this but I knew I had to take care of it and not be lazy. Notice, I’m reacting to a problem. I’m not thinking this through like a business transaction. It’s a consumer purchase, I’m not a print shop, I’m just a musician that occasionally prints some stuff. I didn’t plan it, I didn’t know about it and I didn’t want to do it but it’s a necessity. I was motivated by urgency.
Urgency as a Driving Force
That’s often the case with consumers on Amazon with all types a products. From things as mundane as a printer cartridge or as urgent as forgetting to get a birthday gift for your spouse. If I had more time I would go down to the shop and buy the cartridge or item I needed. However, I just so busy, I need to buy it quickly on Amazon and get on with my day.
In my urgency and need to be done with this quickly, I almost missed the mental processes that took place. So, I get on Amazon, search for the printer cartridge I need and scroll through the listings. I got to about the fourth one down and immediately decided that’s the one I want, almost missing what was going on in my head.
The Value of Bundling
The first listing was £9 and it looked like a compatible item, but I scrolled past it until the fourth or fifth which really caught my attention. It was such an intuitive process that I had to slow it down and ask myself, “why am I about to but this?” First off, I’m not in a price comparing mood. It was way cheaper than I was expecting. I was expecting £40 or £50 for an actual Brother cartridge and the listings were in the £9 to £15 range. My price resistance was way down because I was prepared to pay almost 5 times that amount and move on. Since it was so much cheaper, I wasn’t going to sit there and compare prices.
What set the listings apart, and what won it for me, was the one offered a two-pack. If I were to reverse engineer my buying thought process, the first thing that got me was that it was a two-pack and bundling brings out the value thinking. The price compared to the top listing. I could see that it was a value to get the two-pack over the one pack. The my frustration of running out. Since I didn’t want to be in this situation, I would want to buy the two-pack so I wouldn’t have to go through this. This is true for a lot of stuff. If you are selling anything renewable, bundling them brings value to the buyer because they don’t want to run out in a month or two.
The Value of Message to Market Match
The next thing thing that won me over was that it specifically said it was for a Brother printer. The listing said exactly what I wanting to see rather than almost what I wanted to see. That helped push me over the edge and buy it.
Psychology of Sales
Even as an Amazon seller, I was almost taken unaware with the way selling works. If I didn’t spend my life working on Amazon and teaching others how to sell on Amazon, I would have completely missed how the psychology of this process works. It came down to three things.
- The price, relative to the other listings
- The bundling value
- The exact match of what I was looking for
The last thing I noticed that influenced my decision want the ratings. The top listing had 39 reviews and 4.5 stars. It was that little bit of imperfection. Whereas the one I bought had 16 reviews and a 5 star average. If I were being objective, I would calculate it. The one listing had many more reviews and likely had just as good overall satisfaction. Some buyers will do this, so it is a very important aspect to be aware of. However, in these urgent situations, consumers tend to be irrational and see 4.5 stars compared to 5.
Watch What Really Makes Amazon Shoppers Buy
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