Emotions in eCommerce

Emotions play a huge role in brick and mortar “Old school” commerce…and in eCommerce even a greater one!
In this article I try to shed some light about Emotions in the eCommerce buying experience, how it is different from offline commerce and to showcase how ebay and Amazon tackle this challenge differently.

Emotions in Offline Vs. Online retail commerce

Offline buying experience and the emotions it creates in brick and mortar stores is very much bounded to entering a store, looking around, trying a product and purchasing it. Managing buyers emotions in offline stores is not an easy task at all from one single reason – when entering a physical store we are using all our senses altogether.
It makes a great deal how a store looks like, how the inventory is presented, the smell inside the store, the service we get from the store’s workers, the music we hear and most important the fact that we can touch and feel the products before making a purchase.
In my article “The future of online retail is offline” I describe that offline commerce brings an experience that online commerce cannot deliver and vice versa, and different experience meaning different emotions experienced by the buyer.

eCommerce produce different buying experience than offline commerce, which triggers many other emotions that need to be manged by eCommerce retailers in order to make a sale. In eCommerce, a buyer is exposed to so many messages and has to do many different actions till receiving the product – Searching, comparing, review product details, review seller’s details, payment terms, shipping terms, return terms, taxes etc… Each of these different touch points triggers emotions in different timing and settings. A great online buying experience manages all these emotions to create an efficient, fun and exciting feeling.

The complexity in managing emotions in eCommerce

Searching for a product

Probably the first thing when entering eCommerce site is to use the free text search box, enter few keywords (query) and expect to get very relevant search results.
By delivering search results that are precise for the buyers’ intent, we bring a great first impression.
The technical challenge in big eCommerce sites is huge. Despite the need to have a great search algorithm, we have to understand the buyer’s type we are serving and the intent. Some look for bargains, some look to get inspiration, some know exactly what they need and some haven’t decided, some are old, some are young, some are men and some are women.
Therefore, in order to give a great first impression on our search results page, we need to decide which buyer type we serve and to be able to it without too much information. This uncertainty and complexity impact the experience and the emotions of buyers. Moreover, If a buyer doesn’t get what is expected, all that is needed is to do one click to leave the store and search for competitors sites.
A seller in a physical store can easily answer most of these questions just by looking at the buyer who just entered the store and his behavior. Immediate impression is not always an issue in physical store because it takes much more effort for a buyer to leave offline store compared to an online one.
Therefore the complexity of keeping buyers in an online store much more significant and meeting buyers expectations (and emotions) is crucial.

Making a buying decision

After getting relevant online search results, we enter into the product page to learn more about the product and about the deal terms. Traditionally this is the most detailed page in the site and probably the most important one because this is where the buyer makes the purchase decision and we would like it to be as fast as possible.
Therefore, this page must make us feel that we eventually found what we want, and that we have to decide fast before it will be too late. In my article about booking.com buying experience I shared how far Booking took this approach. Booking invests a lot to do exactly that, manage buyers emotions and drive their buyers to decide fast.
In offline retail, a buyer can touch the product, the sales representative can ask the buyer what is needed, and can help in making to a decision using personal skills. This is a big advantage of offline stores, which bring to higher conversion sales rate.

The solutions in eCommerce to influence buying decision are still very basic, thus we see that most of buying decisions (when the product is not very cheep), are done in other mediums – either on physical stores, ask friends for recommendations and visit sites that compare products and share reviews.

We see these days many startups and big companies invest a lot in this “View Item Page” in order to manage better buyers emotions and meet their expectations – to drive conversion up.

Checkout

In offline store, all a buyer needs to do is to take the credit card out and within seconds the deal is done. Usually there is no trust issue between the buyer and the seller because the buyer takes the product home and in case of an issue with the product, the buyer can take it to the physical store.

In eCommerce the checkout process is not straight forward at all. Buyers need to share personal information and credit card, and tell the seller where they leave in order to ship the product. At the end of the purchase, the buyer stays with a promise that the seller will honor the commitment to sell a good product and ship it on time, while keeping our private information safe. If not, this can create a huge frustration and effort regarding product and money returns. Due to all that trust issues, many buyers still prefer buying at physical stores.

Online stores overcome this by simplifying the checkout process by using Google/Facebook sign-in options which allow buyers to share their details securely, and payment is done by using well known payment options like Paypal, Apple Pay, Google Pay etc. Using services from these big companies really makes a difference for many buyers and improves trust, but still the buyer remains worrying about product quality and delivery time. Needless to say that trust raises great amount of emotions in eCommerce which are less an issue in physical stores.

ebay and Amazon try to bridge the gap

Both ebay and Amazon invest tremendous amount of money to create positive emotions and remove negative feelings of the millions of buyers and sellers that are using their platforms.
Success leads to two things – sales and retention (returning customers).
Many of the solutions they both give are similar, like simple checkout process, personal experience, call to action messages, better search results etc…

But, one critical aspect is done differently and tells the entire story of the differences between ebay and Amazon, which is: The level of control over the “Sell side”.

ebay has built a sophisticated platform to bring together buyers and sellers. Each seller determines its own product catalog, payment terms, and most important the shipping terms and level of service. Returns are done between the buyer and the seller and in case of an issue, most of the resolutions are done without ebay’s involvement. Throughout the years, ebay has built many tools to ease up the communication and build trust between all parties, but the level of service for the buyers is still very much different between every seller and seller. Therefore the trust barrier regarding getting an expected experience is still significant.
On the other hand, Amazon took strategic decisions to be “Customer obsessive” and deliver their products fast. These strategic decision is the basis for getting almost full control over the seller’s offering, by building massive warehouses that store all products and deliver them very efficiently to buyers. Amazon gives a full fulfillment services to both buyers and sellers including a huge customer support so that the buyer will always get what was promised. It means that buyers perceived their purchase to be from Amazon (even if it is not always true) which can be trusted much more than unfamiliar sellers. So far this strategy pays off and buyers base is getting bigger and bigger, which leads to more sellers who are willing to work according to the very strict Amazon rules. Amazon will always take the buyers’ side and sellers have to accept this in order to sell on Amazon.

Amazon simplified the challenge to meet customer expectation in all cost by taking full control over the seller’s offering (Sell side). It makes the entire purchase process less emotional and removes significant mental barriers. This service has a very big operation cost both on Amazon and on Sellers who sell on Amazon. For years Amazon marketplace was not profitable, to date Amazon US operation is profitable but the international marketplaces are still not profitable and Amazon financial leverage is high and contains big risks.
ebay on the other hand plays a safer game by its focus to create a healthier marketplace in which buyers and sellers enjoy a safe environment. ebay says constantly it does not compete with its sellers and that it is after an inclusive marketplace that everyone can buy and sell. Today it feels like Amazon has found the formula to gain market share (even tough its international operation is still lagging), we shall wait and see if this strategy is still valid for the long term in this ever changing eCommerce environment.

In conclusion

Managing buyers (and sellers) emotions on eCommerce is very different than in brick and mortar stores, and is more difficult to solve. Therefore buyers still makes most of their purchases offline which means that mental barriers in making an online purchase are still very significant.
Online giants like ebay and Amazon invest a lot in order to simplify their ecosystem and reduce bad emotions related to online commerce. I believe that eventually both online and offline mediums will merge into one ecosystem that will give the best from each one.
We can see the future at the end of the tunnel, I just wander how far it is.

Ori Feldstein is a senior manager, experienced in eCommerce and in management of multi-million dollars programs in various industries – Big data, e-commerce and Defense. He is a co-founder of two family owned websites in the B2B eCommerce of chemicals (cheta.biz ; chemcenters.com). Follow him on Linkedin, @ori-feldstein.