We know that a lot of studies are being made on user behaviour and psychology of the customers making purchases in the offline world as well as the online world and we know that these studies are useful in making the products being showcased to the right audience. You might be aware that after studies were made for retail stores on how customers shop, they started placing the items closer and far away from each other so that customers can get as many items during their visit as possible and maximize the sales of their stores. The same happens in the online world as well where user patterns are studied and then they are targeted and retargeted.
Now, a new study has been performed and this one is unique because the study focuses on use of mouse cursors and their patterns to understand how the customer thinks when they want to shop something on e-commerce sites. Fisher said, “By capturing the trajectory of a cursor’s locations, we estimate brand consideration time—the initial time at which consumers start to consider a brand’s desirability—and product consideration time—the initial time at which consumers start to consider a product’s desirability”. “We find that such attribute consideration times differ and that these relative differences in consideration time influence consumers’ choice of branded products.”
After the outcome was studied, results showed that “while consumers typically process brand attributes relatively later than product attributes, the timing of this processing affects choice. When consumers trade off brand and product desirability, the earlier that they consider brand attributes, the more likely they are to choose the option from the preferred brand.” Also, there was one study where “results extended to decisions involving three attributes, such as brand, product, and price. They found that consumers process product desirability earlier than price desirability, whereas they process price and brand desirability at a similar time.” The role of advertisements is also crucial in making shopping decisions for people. It was studied that “advertisements can influence brand consideration: When ads succeed at making brand information top of mind over product information, consumers tend to resolve the conflict between choice options by selecting options from a preferred brand, even if it means choosing a less preferred product”.
