NOVEMBER 17, 2020

Online Shopping Biases That You Wouldn’t Have Guessed Existed

SATYAM PATI

1. Anchoring Effect

It is the tendency of individuals to give more importance to the initial piece of information – the anchor – over everything that follows. For example, if a T-shirt costs Rs 1,000 without a discount, while another one costs Rs 1,000 but its seller strikes-out the MRP of Rs 2,000 to reveal its discounted price.

2. Bandwagon Effect

It is the tendency of individuals to give more importance to a product simply because it’s trendy. People queuing up outside the Apple store to buy the latest iPhone are a case in point.

3. Scarcity Bias

It is the tendency to give greater importance to products that are scarce. Typically an online seller will display there is only ‘one’ or ‘limited’ stock remaining to create a sense of urgency among buyers. Count-down timers run on websites to indicate that the deal will expire in the next 15 minutes.

4. Sunk Cost Fallacy

It is the tendency of people to continue an action if they have invested considerable time or effort into it, even if it might make them worse-off. Online retailers often make use of this drawback. For instance, service or delivery charges are added and revealed to you only while checking-out.

5. Default Effect

It is the tendency to stick with options that are assigned by default due to inertia. Some online retailers try to cross-sell products by capitalizing on such bias. So, for instance, if you are buying a laptop online, an USB charger or insurance get automatically added to the cart.