Several people have different buying and spending habits. And, when it is about your potential buyers, it really makes a great deal of impact on the market where you are likely to showcase and sell you product or service.
Considering the same, no matter who visits your website on the Internet, has a particular buying habit. And, because of the same they do have a spending budget too and an idea about how they are going to spend the same.
Now you have to get the most out of such buyers’ potential. And, to do that you need to have a good understanding of all of them.
Yes, with a good grip, you can influence them accordingly by catering to their spending tendencies.
Let’s start with a brief about all these three types of buyers. Practically, there are two segments of buyers with extreme tendencies. One of them spends without thinking, we call them Impulse Buyers, and the other thinks too much before spending, they are called Value Shoppers.
But the majority of buyers come under the category of Average Spenders.
So, if you can put a bit of effort understanding them, you will be able to cater to them easily.
But, after all that information, you are likely to get confused. But do not worry as we are here to take care of the same. Let’s help you steer the sip through the turbulent river.
The Three Types of Buyers on the Internet
There are particularly three types of buyers who come across your website on the Internet.
They are:
- Impulse Buyers
- Average Spenders
- Value Shoppers
You can already understand from the names but there is more to them. Let us find out how these three segments can influence your marketing efforts.
Getting into Details
Impulse Buyers:
These are such people who feel no pain in spending their money. They consist of the lowest percentage of all of the buyers on the internet however dealing with them happens to be the best experience. And, you already know why.
They make purchasing acts pretty quickly and give no second thoughts to their actions. Yes, they do not feel any hesitation in giving out money to get what they want. So, to make them fall for your product all you have to do is resonating with their feelings.
If you happen to think that these are the people who love spending or spend their money in order to show off how much they got in their pocket, you will be highly mistaken. It is just that Impulse Buyers tend to spend on a high emotional level and all you have to do is cater to that emotional volatility.
In short,
- They do not have self-control over spending
- They are under debt
- They do not save
Average Spenders:
Average Spenders consist of the majority of buyers.
You can also call them market researchers as they tend to spend hours performing research about options and try their best to purchase what fits the best to their needs.
It might take them decades to figure out what works and what does not. But they do not care.
All they want is to save at least a tiny bit of money investing in the most cost-effective solution to their problem.
Yes, they happen to the closest to the ideal buyer persona and tend to respond to persuasions and your top-of-the-funnel information filled content is likely to grab their attention as they love to make informed decisions.
They know how much they have in their pocket and cut their coat according to their cloth.
Value Shoppers:
Money is kind of a non-renewable resource for this kind of buyers.
They just hate to take out any green page from their pocket. They want it stored and only spend a penny when their life depends on it.
All they want is to save money. For what you may ask. Maybe for some unforeseen circumstances.
The buyer’s remorse that they face while spending money for any purchase is unmatchable.
Value Shoppers takes their tendency as negotiable, they consider it as if it can be persuaded, however cracking the nut is often very hard. This is because their tendencies are not rational as that is how spending pain affects them.
This happens for impulse buyers too, they to feel pain, but for not purchasing a product. Yes, so that is just the opposite of how value shoppers perceive it.
Value shoppers are less likely to respond to any advertisements or product/service commercials. They have a particular idea about how much a product or service should cost and are driven by the same. Value shoppers do not consider the cost of a product that advertisements tell them.
In short,
- They feel a high buyer’s remorse
- Their self-control is unmatchable
- They tend to save rather than spending
So, Is This All?
These stats sound pretty easy and understandable. However, in reality, things are much more confusing. Let’s face it.
- There are people who behave as impulse buyers and value shoppers depending on what they are purchasing.
- These three segments of buyers are not separate people but tendencies that come out at certain circumstances.
- These behaviours change depending on the buyer’s age, financial condition, profession and several other factors.
As we mentioned in the points, these states change depending on several factors. These factors can be anything and keeping it the simplest, these can be the product that a person is about to buy or what situation is the person in. it is not something that you can generally demonstrate through a regular graph.
Despite of all these complexities, we can still come up with a healthy segmentation of buyer behaviour depending on a paper by Scott Rick, George Loewenstein and Cynthia Cryder of Carnegie Mellon University. It is called “Tightwads and Spendthrifts”.
So, let’s dig in into the details and try to understand the depths of their characteristics.
The Characteristics
So, now as we know that there is no blatant segmentation between buyers, let’s see how further we can get with their characteristics.
Impulse Buyers
- Low Self-control When It Comes to Buying
Impulse buyers happen to come from a wide range of income levels. It is normal to think of rich people as impulse buyers, although, there are people from low-income groups too who have tendencies of impulse buying.
So, no matter how much they earn, they happen to stick to their trait of being impulse buyers.
Speaking of rich impulse buyers, they happen to spend a good lot of their income into luxurious items that cost them a fortune, however, they do not seem to care much as their money keeps flowing.
Now, when it is about people who do not earn much yet tend to have tendencies of impulse buying, to cope up with it they tend to spend all their income without thinking twice. Which is even worse!
- They Think the Lest About the Consequences
If you tend to think that impulse buyers do not spend time thinking before making a purchase, then we must say that you do have a misconception about the same.
Yes, impulse buyers do take time to think before making a purchase. However, they do not think the way you expect them to. Instead, they take time to experience the joy of purchasing, the thrill they will experience after they have bought the product.
And, that is why there is no buyer’s remorse in their case. All they feel is pleasure!
- They Are Mostly of the Low-Age Group
You could see this coming, couldn’t you?
Yes, as the name suggests, these people are more impulsive in nature and clearly who are the people tend mostly to be more impulse driven? Young people!
The levels of spending of every person change throughout their lives. And every person is likely to spend a lot more than they do in their older ages.
However, this is not always the case. People tend to behave like impulse buyers for a particular product or service, however, they might behave differently for some other product.
For instance, there are people who tend to spend mindlessly when it comes to buying clothes, some people spend too much when it is about food, and some spend too much on gadgets.
- Students of Humanities, Social Work, and Mass Communication
Yes, students who do not belong from the science background and do not have much attachment with metrics, tend to be on a higher level of spending compared to those of science background.
This is actually quite simple. People who are from the humanities background, tend to rely more on their emotions rather than crunching number while spending for something they happen to like.
- They Are Most of the Time in Debt
Due to their tendency of overspending, impulse buyers think the least about calculating home much they have left in their pocket. Hence, they see a tough time stretching it till the end of the month with limited money. So, it is quite easy to understand why they are mostly in debt.
- They Are Anything but Savers
People who face a tough time maintaining their expenses and spend most of their time under debt, are less likely to have any sort of savings. Also, as they do not feel any buyer’s remorse, they don’t even give spending a second thought. Hence the chances of turning into a saver go even lower.
Value Shoppers
- They Belong from Science Background
Value Shoppers have very tight pockets and tend to spend the least to spend a day. This is because they have a good understanding of metrics, hence they are more calculative. And, this sets them apart from the students of humanities and social work who are more likely to spend a lot more.
- Have Bachelor’s Degree
People having a higher level of education have a higher tendency of being value shoppers. This is not a discriminatory statement, bit the truth. We all know that education is costly. Hence, people who have a bachelor’s degree have already purchased something that has cost them a fortune and submerged them in debt. Yes, we are talking about education itself.
- High Level of Purchase Pain
Impulse buyers focus on the pleasure of buying things, and as a result, feel no pain of purchase. However, the pain of purchase that value shoppers face is very high pain of purchase which prevents them from purchasing at all.
- They Have High Self-Control
Value shoppers have a high level of self-control. This is very good to some extent. And, when this self-control is about spending money, no one can beat them. But this is harming when they need something and they have to spend money on the same, though they cannot give up on their self-control and keep themselves from spending.
- They Are Savers
This is a no brainer. The person who cannot spend money because they are too calculative, feel a high level of purchase pain and have an over-powering self-control over spending, are likely to save a good deal of money.
Average Spenders
It will be an easier deal understanding the average spenders if you can consider to be the best blend of being an impulse buyer and a value shopper.
Hence there is not much of to think or understand about their characteristics as they are just the person you would picture on the buyer persona that you have created.
Yes, they do not really focus on the pain or pleasure of making a purchase, Instead, they take much time to understand if the purchase would be worth it.
And, that is why they tend to perform thorough market research and make informed decisions.
How to Appeal Them All?
Value Shoppers
It is quite easy to guess that no matter what you offer them they will end up saying a blatant “no” to it until it is something that have made their minds up to purchase or is according to what they think it should be priced. Otherwise, you just cannot breakthrough.
To convince them, you have to –
Show Numbers
You have to make them understand that whatever you are selling costs worth the same with your numbers.
Yes, they are number-driven and can be convinced only based on the same. Create charts, data-based infographics, statistics. That might help you get the deal. Otherwise, it is not going to help you at all to convince them to convert.
Tell Them How Cost Effective It Is
They feel a lot of pain of purchase. And that is what makes convincing them so tough. So, what you need to do is make them understand that they will be beneficial if they invest in your cost-effective deal.
They are so focused on saving money that to them, spending feels like losing something that cannot be earned back. Here, if you can make them feel the pleasure of saving, that might help you turn them into your buyer.
Show Them How Useful Your Product Is
Value Shoppers only invest in things that is mandatory to purchase. So, clearly you have to make them understand why they need to buy something and how useful it is in their daily lives.
If you think that showing the luxe of a product or service would do, then you are wrong. So, it is better to focus on the longevity part of the product. Make them feel as if they are the gainer in your deal. Only that can help you.
Impulse Buyers
Practically, you need to invest in no persuasion techniques to help yourself crack the deal. They will just buy it anyway. So, what you should do instead of focusing on how you can increase your profit margin.
Focus on making your product feel pleasurable
All they consider is how much pleasure it would be to purchase a product or service. Nothing else.
So, what you have to do is portray your product or service in such a way which would make them feel that with it they will feel a great deal of gratification, luxe or some other unfulfillable emotional need.
Tell them how pleasurable it would be to purchase something like your product. That is enough to convince them to buy your product.
Set Up a Higher Price
To an impulse buyer, the higher the price, the higher goes the product’s pleasure giving ability. If you are selling a massager at $150 then set the price as $500 for an impulse buyer. Trust us, they will consider the product to be equally effective. And will eventually buy it. Use your price quote to attract them.
Set Up an Add on Fee
They will pay extra to get the product if they find it to be pleasurable enough. Or else, at least you have to tell them it is.
So, if you put up a higher delivery charge or service charge, an impulse buyer would still buy it anyway.
Average Spender
This is the most important segment of buyers as they consist of the most of all people out there. So, you have to give it more time.
As we have mentioned earlier, average spenders will be the ones to respond to your persuasive efforts. And that is how you can convince them.
So, all you have to do is increasing your website traffic, optimize your content accordingly and churn out some creative copywriting to be more convincing.
How To Understand What Type of Buyers You Have?
With a little effort you can easily understand which segments of buyers you cater to. They might be anything between impulse buyers, average spenders, value shoppers.
However, you should always focus on average spenders as they make up most of the traffic that you have on your website.
To cut it short, here are a few points that might help you.
- Find out their intent and connect it to buyer type. Analyse keywords that your website traffic uses. That would help you enough.
- Go through demographic details as we said earlier, spending habits go down with age.
- Brainstorm about what type of product you sell and what type of people are likely to buy them.
- Keep up with the statistics.
Final Thoughts
Conversions are important, but more important is the revenue that you generate from them. Hence, understanding the buyer type is quite important in order to increase your overall ROI.
You can simply try to increase your prices while catering to impulse buyers, balance it out while serving to value shoppers, and keep a convincing price for average spenders.
That will help you enough to increase your sales as well as your revenue.
