Before we begin, let us understand what is a purchase decision? A purchase decision is nothing but a thought process that leads a customer from identifying a need, generating options, choosing a particular brand or a product. As a business owner, you should be always looking to influence the purchase decision positively. However, in order to positively influence the buying decision, you need to know the factors that influence it. Therefore, in this blog post, we are listing the top 8 factors that influence purchase decisions of the customers.
1. Online reputation
We live in a digital world, where every single individual is equipped with a smartphone. People can easily express what they think about your business on social media. This, in turn, forms your online reputation. In other words, this is a modern word of mouth marketing. Today, customers no longer believe what business owners have to say about their product or services. They are more likely to believe former and existing customers.
If people are expressing good things about your products and services, it will help you to create a good online reputation. This reputation will influence the purchase decision of potential customers and convert them into customers.
2. Choices
When customers have too many choices, things usually do not work in favor of business owners. Of course, customers like to have more options. However, let us understand how it affects decision making. When customers have too many options, they become overwhelmed and lead to unrealistic expectation and decision-making paralysis. This further leads to unhappiness. For example, smaller stores have fewer choices, but they are more successful in making customers happy.
How to fight this? If there are many competitors who are selling the same things that you sell, focus on making your products and services unique. You should have a unique selling point and run marketing campaigns around this USP.
3. Social nod
Customers do online research on a service or a product before making a purchase. While doing so they are usually alone. Somewhere deep down they have a question – am I on the right track? In such a situation, they usually tend to look at their friends to reassure themselves that they are making the right decision. That is the reason why we find ads that say, “9 out of 10 people opt our product.”
So, what customers are doing here? They are looking for a social nod to go ahead. This social nod is so powerful that a customer can scrap his research outcome and go for the people’s choice. Social media marketing helps you to spread the good word about your product and services. Have a presence on various social media platforms and invest more on SMM.
4. Labels
Believe it or not, labels do matter. Labels may be “Made in Britain,” “Made in China,” or any other label. These labels impact the purchase decision significantly. Here is an example. Four out of five customers notice labels before purchasing. Nearly 75% of these customers buy the product if the label is “Made in Britain.” Further, more than 50% of the customers are less likely to buy the product if they find “Made in China” label. If you are starting a new business right from scratch, keep this fact in mind.
5. Economic factor
If a person is looking to buy something, then what is the most important factor that he considers? Money! Right? He begins searching for products and services keeping his budget in mind. He is not going to look at the features of all the products and then filter them according to his budget. Let us take an example.
A person who wants to buy a good smartphone under 150 £ will not make the list of all the phones brands and study them. Instead, he makes the list of phones keeping the budget in the mind. Hence, there is no chance of iPhone 8 making to the list. It is obvious that a person won’t buy a product that he can’t afford.
6. Customer reviews
Google reviews play an important role in both SEO and online reputation management for a reason. Your website says how good your online presence is, but what about ground realities? That is where reviews come into the picture. Since they are written by the former and existing customers, they are considered more credible.
More positive customer reviews mean more new customers. That is because new customers read online reviews before making a purchase. If they find good qualities in the reviews, it will positively influence the buying decision. Here are the best practices you need to follow.
- Try to improve your review count
- Ask happy customers to leave a review
- Collect feedbacks
- Provide good customer service
- Delete negative Google reviews
7. Personal factors
Personal factors are the factors that are not in the control of business owners. Personal factors include age, gender, occupation, region, religion, language, income, culture, race, nationality, social status, economic status, education qualification, physical appearance, personal taste, etc. These things are always working in the background and collectively add up to influence a buying decision. Most of the times customers are not aware that they are influenced by these factors.
8. Marketing factors
Business owners put a lot of money for marketing. They do it for a reason. There are four marketing factors that influence the purchase decision. Below we are listing them.
- Product
- Pricing
- Promotion
- Place of distribution
In simple words, customers are more likely to buy a product that has a decent price, high quality, fame and is available in their location.
In this blog post, we have discussed the eight factors that influence the purchase decision of the customers. There are a hundred other factors that can influence the buying decision, for example, free shipping, EMI, easy returns, special size, delivery speed, in-store pickup, the distance of the store, discount, customer service, packing, visual appearance, navigation, check out ease, newness, social advice, brand awareness, offers, demos, dos and don’ts, variety, etc. We have discussed the top eight.