Buyer beware: 5 tricks online retailers use to convince you to buy

Between buy-one, get-one deals, large shopping carts, and store design, there are tricks retailers use to get consumers to spend more money.

And as more shopping moves online, retailers and advertisers have also adapted these tactics to add more items to the digital shopping cart, according to the Public Interest Research Group’s consumer watchdog team. which released a new report on Tuesday.

The ability to recognize such tactics can help consumers save money instead of falling for them.

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Urgency appeals like Black Friday

Urgency appeals use deadlines to pressure the consumer to act quickly, such as on Black Friday, Prime Day, or another “ending soon” sale.

Retailers might say things like: “Hurry up before it’s over – last chance!” “Don’t miss out!”

“Retailers have long used limited-time offers to convey a sense of urgency to shoppers, but online stores have a new trick: the countdown timer,” PIRG’s consumer monitoring team said in the report.

“Watching the seconds tick by until a deal is over forever makes you feel like time is running out and can be a bit anxiety-inducing, at least for this buyer. This makes it much harder to think clearly,” they added.

But sometimes such countdown timers don’t count down anything at all, the team said. On Etsy, they found 20 “best-sellers or Etsy-curated products” with countdown sales. According to the Consumer Watchdog Group, of the 20 the team tracked, 80% reset when the clock reached 0 with no change in price.

The remaining 20% ​​of Etsy shops tracked actually became cheaper over time.

The shortage appeal: “Only 5 pieces left in stock”

The goal of scarcity appeals is to urge consumers to buy now, but instead of time running out, retailers suggest that inventory is running low or there is high demand.

Online retailers can decide how to communicate scarcity, but as a consumer there is no way to tell. Websites may say that there are only five items left, that many other people have the item in their shopping cart, or that an item is selling quickly.

“This tactic is designed to encourage you to make an impulse purchase and discourage you from taking the time to compare, do further research or ask yourself, ‘Do I really need this?'” the consumer watchdog team said.

“Maybe 20 people have this coffee maker in their cart, but only an average of one person per week actually buys it and the store has 100 in stock,” the team added.

Tricks with psychological pricing

Retailers have many tricks when it comes to pricing a product.

Many are familiar with the tactic of rounding down, which means making something appear cheaper if it costs $4.99 instead of $5. Other tricks include removing commas on large amounts ($1,200 instead of $1,200) and offering discounts on items that the consumer is likely to feel guilty about purchasing.

“I don’t need a cookie, but if I get half of it when I buy coffee, the discount is at least some justification for me,” the team gives an example in their report.

Some retailers’ prices are rarely real bargains. In 2022, Consumers’ Checkbook tracked sales prices at 24 major retailers and found that most stores’ discount claims were not discounts at all, but rather attempts to mislead. Many retailers offered the same “sale price” more than half of the time.

Another pricing trick consumers may see this shopping season is breaking the price into monthly installments. A monthly payment can help spread the cost compared to a full payment, but this tactic can also change consumers’ cost perceptions, the team said.

“Today, if you can get an item for 25% of the price, it feels like you got a deal, even though in the end you didn’t get a deal. You still have to pay the full costs – and “sometimes even higher late payment fees apply if you’re not careful,” warned the consumer protection agency.

Research suggests this can even lead to more compulsive spending. A 2022 survey of buy now, pay later users found that two-thirds said they would buy more than they otherwise would have if they had to pay the full amount upfront.

Social proof, including testimonials and influencers

Social proof is a phenomenon where people like to make decisions based on what others are doing. The consumer advocacy team used the example of a neighbor who loved his electric leaf blower, “and tells you all about it, maybe you’ll be more likely to buy one yourself.”

Marketers try to implement the same tactic using customer testimonials online, including from verified customers who have paid for their time or fake reviews with hired actors. Influencers are also paid to promote products “as if they were regular, enthusiastic consumers and not someone paid to make a pitch.”

Fake customer reviews are now also on the rise. A product’s star rating and comment section can be helpful to a consumer, but they can also be easily manipulated. According to PIRG’s consumer monitoring team, an estimated 30-40% of online reviews are fake.

“Paid review farms – armies of remote workers who log fake reviews – are responsible for millions of fake reviews each year, which retailers can purchase in bulk to boost their product online,” the report said. “With ChatGPT, it’s now easier than ever to create lots of text for mass fake reviews.”

Fear of appeals from advertisers

According to the consumer protection organization, fear-based appeals from advertisers are a classic tactic.

First, “you awaken, emphasize, or otherwise remind your customer of a problem/concern/fear, and then conveniently offer to sell them the solution.” The report gave the example of a home security company using a promotional email email about “break-ins in your home near you” and then informed consumers that they were running a special on their alarm system.

“Fear appeals aim to get you to take action to prevent a bad outcome. At their most benign, they give PSAs their power and warn you about harmful behavior,” the consumer advocacy group said.

According to the report, it can also get a little predatory.

Health and beauty advertising, for example, places particular emphasis on appealing to fear by addressing one or another personal fear.

“Think of hair growth commercials that ask you if you really want to be the type of guy who shaves his head OR if you’d rather pay for a hair treatment – you’ll be shown lots of men with full heads of hair who “Smile on your way through life, usually with a beautiful woman nearby,” the report says as an example.

And the rise of data-driven targeted advertising has only exacerbated this problem. Consumers looking for weight loss or teeth whitening are having their data collected by advertisers, meaning “messages about how to fix our perceived deficiencies” can pop up whenever we go online, the report warned.