Buyer psychology

[inverser]

Does anyone else here try to get in the heads of their potential buyers? Whilst binging on the topic of decision making and choice, I came across this article from the New Yorker. Can you have too many choices? Select All: The New Yorker.

From the article -

In the real world, neither people nor firms maximize utility. Life is complicated, the options of the marketplace are numerous, and the human intellect is frail. As Herbert Simon, the 1978 Nobel laureate in economics, observed, any firm that tried to make decisions that would “maximize” its returns would bankrupt itself in a never-ending search for the best option. What firms do instead is “satisfice,” to use Simon’s term: they content themselves with results that are “good enough.” Schwartz, who is a close reader of Simon, worries that the profusion of choices we face—a hundred varieties of bug spray, breakfast cereal, extra-virgin olive oil—is turning us into maximizers, and maximizers, he thinks, are prone to misery and depression.

More copypasta -

Research in the wake of Kahneman and Tversky has unearthed a number of conundrums around choice. For one thing, choice can be “de-motivating.” In a study conducted several years ago, shoppers who were offered free samples of six different jams were more likely to buy one than shoppers who were offered free samples of twenty-four. This result seems irrational—surely you’re more apt to find something you like from a range four times as large—but it can be replicated in a variety of contexts. Students who are offered six topics they can write about for extra credit, for instance, are more likely to write a paper than students who are offered thirty.

I hope someone else found this article as interesting as I did. A novel idea, isn't it? For those of you with an eBay Store, perhaps having fewer products in the store will increase sales or even just subconsciously persuade people to buy sooner than later. Of course then I suppose an important question still remains: How many is too many?

[aspkin]

I think for us as sellers, what really matters is presentation.

If you have a professional looking auction that answers all the buyers questions and is listed at a fair price you'll get sales.

I try to get in the head of my buyers every single day. I pretend I'm the buyer, first time landing on one of my pages as if I have never been there before. What am I looking at, what are the negatives that would drive me away, what are the positives.

I try to minimize the negatives and maximize the positives.

I try and point buyers in the right direction.

Click here, do this, etc. You have to tell the buyer what you want them to do for them to do it.

It's much more than that, but I do find it interesting.

[Burst]

Exactly, I try and see what features they want highlighted the most. Or what would be most important to the buyer and go with that.

[inverser]

I suppose the reason this article really hit me is because lately I've been researching more of my competition and the majority have eBay stores that are chock full of items and a huge PITA to navigate.

This may or may not be a big deal to people who are searching for a specific item but I think it could act as a deterrent to folks that are just browsing or "window shopping" and will certainly discourage spontaneous purchases.

Perhaps dividing my inventory into smaller groups and subcategories among a few different eBay accounts will increase the number of items that are being watched and lead to more sales.

Jedi mind tricks FTW!

[eseller]

you got it - buy-it-now will sit their but an auction will sometimes go higher than the buy-it-now price you had up last month that didn't sell

its crazy sometimes . . . definitely a Jedi mind tricks