How To Trigger Impulse Purchases And Boost Your Sales?

Are you looking for ways to get a quick sales surge for your online store? Have you ever heard about an impulse purchase? Well, today we are going to tell you how to make the most of your ecommerce business using knowledge of customer psychology only.

What’s the main aspect of any ecommerce business? Right, it’s your profit! Otherwise why have you started it?

So, are you satisfied with your online store revenues? Or do you have a good income, but you want more to make a fortune with your business? If so, there is a perfect solution for you – try to trigger impulse purchases!

What is an impulse purchase?

First of all, in order to discuss the benefits of impulse purchases, let’s take a look at the impulse buying definition.

An impulse purchase is a customers’ trend to buy something without prior planning.

So have you ever decided to purchase a tiny thing when just surfing an online store, even if you were not going to do this? This is, actually, the way an impulse purchase works.

Psychology of impulse buying

Impulse purchases cause consumers to buy various items instantly. But, why exactly is that?

• Emotions

A key factor that plays into impulse buying is the consumer’s emotional state. Emotions are complex and intense feelings toward something or someone. You can often see them in various forms of expressions such as anger, fear, delight, enthusiasm, and excitement.

Many studies have shown that various expressions affect consumer buying behavior in different ways. Originally, it was believed that happiness always preceded an impulsive purchase, producing effects such as pleasure and joy. However, overtime, it was noted that under certain circumstances, shoppers tend to impulse buy to release negative feelings like stress, fatigue, and upset.

Previous data also suggests that face-related experiences can stimulate someone’s emotional responses, “face” being the self-image someone gets based on their social identity, whether on social media or in real-life.

Successfully gaining face, or prestige, in a social environment, can lead to impulse purchases. When someone loses face, or feels embarrassed, anxious, or rejected, they may end up buying on impulse, too. Self-gifting, or “retail therapy,” is another form of impulse buying one uses to manage their mood.

• Self-control

Over the years, studies have shown that people resist various impulses. And thus, a concept was born contemplating a battle between desire and self-control.

Self-control is the ability to override one’s thoughts, emotions, or automatic behaviors, and not act on them.

There are three major elements of self-control, according to researchers.

• Having a clear shopping goal in mind

For example, when people go to the store with a shopping list, or when a shopper goes to a specific store to purchase a wedding suit. Shoppers with unclear goals are more likely to lack self-control.

• Tracking spending behavior 

Shoppers who monitor themselves are less likely to impulse buy.

• Having the strength and energy to control behavior 

If a shopper’s self-control is fatigued (like a muscle), they are more likely to impulse buy.

Some researchers propose that impulse buying results from the lack of self-control. When the desire for a product strikes and overwhelms the buyer, self-control fails and the shopper buys without hesitation.

In fact, impulse buying is the main engine of sales if speaking about online stores. But how much can you gain from impulse shopping if running an ecommerce business? Let’s figure it out!

How can impulse purchases influence your business performance?

We have found out what an impulse purchase is. So now you understand that you are able to get extra sales in your online stores if you follow this approach. But, indeed, can you earn a lot using this trick?

In fact, if you focus on impulse purchase generation when considering the product range for your online store, you’re highly likely to get a lot higher income than usual. According to a recent survey of 2,000 respondents, Americans spend $182.98 monthly on impulse buys. And that’s 18% more than what they spent before the pandemic!

Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?

Based on the above-mentioned facts, we can say for sure that impulsive shopping is a blessing to you and your ecommerce business!

However, in order to make the most of impulse buying, you need to know what impulse products are, how to organize your category pages in the right way to make your online store visitors add as many impulse products to their shopping list as possible, etc.

So, here’s our action list for how to trigger impulse sales online!

How to generate an impulse purchase in your online store: product choice

First, you should understand what kinds of products suit impulse purchases more.

However, there is no easy answer to this question because buying behaviors can differ very much. Impulse buyers tend to choose various impulse products. Seriously, people from different parts of the world have various interests, life concepts, needs, and what’s most important – different levels of income.

For example, if we are speaking about a young shopper with an average income, pretty socks are going to be a promising impulse product.

Well, $1.34 is not such a large sum for a person with median earnings to think a lot about, right? The most important thing is that a product looks very pretty, and that’s why it goes straight to the shopping cart even though it’s not essential.

If we are talking about a population group with high income, then the impulse products will be absolutely different. For example, with the rise of robot vacuum cleaners’ popularity, you can offer such a vacuum cleaner at a relatively low price. And this is going to be a great solution to encourage impulse purchasing when you deal with this audience segment.

So what does this mean? In fact, if you want to succeed in your business, you have to define your target audience carefully. Well, get a profile on your potential customer. After that, you will be able to bet on some impulse products.

However, we suppose you didn’t open this article to read typical advice on running an ecommerce business, right? That’s why we have examined the theory of impulse purchases and now we are ready to provide you with a set of recommendations on how to generate impulse sales.

Tips on increasing your online store revenues through stimulating impulse purchases

• Make sure your online store makes spontaneous purchases possible

First of all, you need to create an environment that is going to encourage your customers to make an impulse purchase in your online store. It’s all about a theme for your store.

So if you want to make a good-looking website that will attract your customers’ attention at first sight, look at the themes from AliDropship! All of them include the necessary features for you to build a money-making online store.

Meanwhile, if you buy a theme from AliDropship, you get free customer support, free updates, and a wide range of customization options. What’s more, pay attention that all the AliDropship themes were designed to comply with your dropshipping business.

Beyond this, when focusing on impulse purchases, it’s AliDropship Plugin that can help you much. With this dropshipping tool, you’re able to create perfect product pages that will serve as one more way to encourage your website visitors to purchase from you.

• Try to focus on products with a low initial price

We have already pointed out that it’s essential for your business to define your target audience. Definitely, if your potential customers have higher income, you can use impulse products that are a bit more expensive. But still, it’s a lot easier for your business to make a fortune on low-cost impulse products!

By the way, if you think that it’s difficult to make lots of money on inexpensive items, you’re totally wrong. As a rule, different tiny things have incredibly low initial prices.

However, when you add this kind of products to your online store, in most cases you’re able to get a double or triple margin price. Some products can let you get even a 1000% margin. Great profit, isn’t it?

• Consider where to place impulse products

You should understand that it’s crucial to put impulse products at the right places on your website. If you don’t pay enough attention to this, your website visitors are highly likely to miss these products.

However, if they are in sight, and the offer is quite tempting, you will have all chances to sell a huge number of these items.

Where to place impulse products in an online store?

• Near the most popular and desired items
• On single product pages of related products
• Closer to shopping cart and checkout

Remember that impulse products have to be eye-catching on your website!

• Give discounts and start promo campaigns

We recommend that you try to provide your potential customers with discounts on impulse products. As a rule, discounts are good enough at encouraging customers to purchase even expensive goods from your online store.

But in fact, this approach can help you when selling impulse products as well.

Moreover, try to make additional proposals: are you eager to buy a T-shirt? Get a discount on shorts as well!

When doing this, pay attention to the Product Bundle Add-On from AliDropship! It lets you easily create product bundles with attractive offers which can significantly boost your profit!

• Use FOMO

It’s also a good idea to use FOMO (fear of missing out) to lure impulse shoppers to buy something from you. FOMO is able to tell your potential customers that the product is extremely popular among your purchasers, but the number of items is limited.

In sum, FOMO is one of the perfect tools for convincing your website visitors to make unplanned purchases from your website.

Moreover, AliDropship is glad to present to you the Urgency add-on. It includes a set of features (social proof icons, trust badges at checkout). Primarily, it aims at making your potential customers think that the products in your store are flying off the shelves.

Don’t forget to use additional dropshipping tools that are essential for increasing your customers’ engagement. For example, feel free to use the Countdown Timer Plugin. It’s going to inform your potential customers that the offer is limited in time.

In fact, AliDropship permanently develops some IT solutions that are going to facilitate your dropshipping journey. So look at the add-ons AliDropship is happy to provide you with right now!

• Create a path for customers to follow

If you want more impulse buys, you need to organize a predetermined path your customers will take through your online store. By utilizing the right store layouts and interior design elements, you can lead customers past your high-demand items and plan for more predictable foot traffic.

While desiring the path for your customers to follow, you can better understand where they’ll need a visual break, where they’re likely to linger, and which types of product displays they’ll pass. All of this will help determine the best placement for impulse displays.

• Try communicating a sense of urgency 

Impulse purchases won’t happen by themselves. You’ll need to devise a strategy that will create a sense of urgency in the mind of the customer. Usually, impulse purchases draw on one of two things:

• Shoppers’ wants
• Staple items

Think for a second, what are the two most common products you see at the checkout line? Usually, it’s candy and sometimes even socks. When you display products that customers desire, that desire does a lot of the heavy lifting that spurs shoppers to buy now. However, when you use the checkout line to showcase promotional items or everyday items, it’s your opportunity to build that sense of urgency.

Using the right language can also help you go a long way! Try incorporating phrases like “Buy now” and “Get it before they’re gone”.

As you can see, this is not challenging to start making money on impulsive buying right now. So if you follow, at least, some of these recommendations, you are extremely likely to boost your online store revenues substantially.

Enjoying the benefits of impulse purchases: final thoughts

There is no doubt that lots and lots of people make impulse purchases every day. The statistics tell us that impulse spending constitutes a significant part of all money spent on ecommerce.

So if you’re an online store owner, no matter if you use the dropshipping business model or not, pay attention to impulse purchases. This is really a must-have for you since it’s a chance for you to make a fortune on them.

However, if you want to succeed with impulse purchases in your online store, you should know how to use them in the right way. So, follow the tips from AliDropship and greatly increase your chances of success!

As you can see, providing opportunities and stimuli to make an impulse purchase is very important for ecommerce businesses. Haven’t you started your business yet? Then, today AliDropship is glad to offer you 2 newcomer-friendly OPTIONS to start your dropshipping business ASAP: Custom stores and Premium dropshipping stores! Don’t lose an opportunity to get a money-making venture right now!