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Impulse buying in the world of hyperlocal ecommerce

Impulse buying has been accelerated with hyperlocal ecommerce services

By Dr. Shamael Zaheer KhanPublished about a year ago 7 min read
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With hyperlocal ecommerce around, impulse buying has been picking up among consumers

“Hyperlocal ecommerce, owing to its fundamental characteristics, has just driven the consumer urge to the limits. It has contributed immensely to impulse buying.”

Introduction

Ever since hyperlocal ecommerce has become the order of the day, consumers have been at the helm of all business decision making. Hyperlocal businesses and marketers around the world have been engaging themselves in formulating the best strategies and courses of action by keeping the consumers’ need and demands in consideration. Impulse buying, the buying of goods without planning to do so in advance, as a result of a sudden whim or impulse, has only been triggered with the advent of hyperlocal ecommerce delivery software and apps and them offering impeccable on-demand delivery solutions. It is hyperlocal ecommerce that has the modern-day consumers wanting for more and wanting it all so impulsively.

Hyperlocal ecommerce and consumer behavior- The present scenario

From a time when shoppers used to make out time for buying and shopping, get dressed up and ready, bear long traffic snarls to reach the hypermarket, face the parking hassles and then eventually line up to make payments to a time of today when all such hassles can be easily overcome and buying can be done with just a few clicks and taps, consumers’ choices have evolved significantly. Yes! Back in the 1950s, people even got dressed up just to go to the department store to buy more clothes. But those days are long behind us.

Today, as the scenario exists, it is no problem to keep on your pajamas, flip open the laptop, spare yourself and your local retailer the awkward hassle of in-person shopping. Sit back, relax and wait for the purchase to land at the front door—almost instantaneously.

As consumer needs and choices have evolved, so has the way marketers targeted the consumers. Today’s consumers have been found to be influenced with ways and mechanisms of marketing that are more technology enabled. Since, hyperlocal ecommerce, a technologically updated and quick version of ecommerce has taken the front seat in present times, customers are bound to get impacted by what services it has to offer.

This fundamental change in consumer behavior has paved way for more hyperlocal ecommerce and has therefore caused an essential shift in how items are delivered. The traditional supply chain was built for an era of limited supply, where customers came to a brick-and-mortar retailer and bought what they needed. But the rise of e-commerce has transformed supply from its physical and limited state to a virtual state—which is "always available." In fact, according to Digital Commerce 360, 68% of online shoppers cited fast shipping capabilities as the determining factor for placing an online order.

Logistics managers and industry brands are now faced with the critical task of setting up new supply chain fulfillment strategies to meet the increased demand for speed, convenience and lower costs. One thing that retailers are embracing to meet these skyrocketing expectations for on-demand delivery is teaming up with state-of-the-art hyperlocal ecommerce delivery software partners—ones that offer businesses excellent supply chain and on-demand delivery solutions.

To this day, as hyperlocal ecommerce has it, the modern-day consumers are providing the hyperlocal ecommerce a requisite push into the industry. The fueling needs and demands of consumers have invited hyperlocal ecommerce delivery software companies to come on the forefront, analyze market needs, develop immaculate software and apps and provide overwhelming on-demand delivery solutions.

Impulse buying in today’s world of instant deliveries

How many of us haven’t ever bought products out of our whim or impulse? Precisely expressing, no one. Being consumers, we all have whims associated to products and services that we can avail which makes us go for impulse buying. The impulse buying in today’s times, is facilitated by the fact that we can avail products and services at the speed of light.

Impulse buying is an important sales driver for both brick-and-mortar and ecommerce businesses. Impulse buys are different from regular purchases because they happen with no pre-planning. An impulse purchase is made in the spur of the moment and often appeals to a sense of instant gratification in the physical retail world- a feeling that is equally easy to evoke in hyperlocal ecommerce because of its lightning quick and convenient nature- shoppers don’t really have to wait for their ordered products for long.

Think of the time when you ordered a pizza so as to satisfy your hunger pangs, lay your hands on the recently launched designer collection, or just whimsically chose to get a fire stick for your smart television so as to watch your favorite web series on that big screen your bedroom has. Yes! Every one of us, have, someday somewhere, given in to hyperlocal ecommerce and our buying whims and fancies. This impulse buying is facilitated to a significant extent through online shopping.

With hyperlocal ecommerce promising instant and convenient deliveries and with on-demand deliveries becoming the order of the day, impulse buying among consumers has been lately seen as a wide practice. In fact, research from User Interface Engineering finds that offering conditional free shipping and running sales are two effective motivators of online impulse buying. There are many ways to structure your offers and, your websites that will entice customers to make impulse purchases.

Hyperlocal features that are highly likely to enable impulse buying among consumers

Free shipping

Free shipping is a powerful and lucrative offer, and has been found to hold more relative value for online shoppers than the actual cost of shipping. Hyperlocal businesses can utilize that to their advantage when structuring a conditional free shipping offer for their ecommerce store. They just need to calculate their average order value, and then set the free shipping threshold somewhere between $5 and $10 or even slightly above that average. They can further encourage shoppers by suggesting products in a specific price range during checkout to help them meet the threshold.

Enticing sales and promotional offers

Attractive discounts and sales promotion offers have been appealing to modern day customers a lot. Incentives and special pricing of products and services help drive impulse purchases, more so in a hyperlocal marketplace. Just as a free shipping threshold can be used to encourage consumers, so can a properly promoted online sale or promotion. Just like in physical retail, low-cost products are most often bought on impulse in ecommerce stores. As with any sale, you'll need to properly promote it through multiple channels to effectively drive impulse purchases.

Smartphone optimized websites

If you have recently ordered a product online out of impulse or whim, chances are negligible that you wouldn’t have used a smartphone for that. This is so because the widespread use of smartphones with access to an efficient hyperlocal ecommerce delivery software or app, have given a tremendous impetus to on-demand delivery services.

As far as online impulse buying is concerned, a major part of encouraging it is making it quick and easy to purchase from your ecommerce store. If someone decides to buy something with no pre-planning, they're much less likely to suffer through a slow or tedious buying process. Here, it is important for hyperlocal businesses to make sure their site is streamlined and mobile-optimized to take full advantage of impulse buying behavior of the contemporary consumers.

Developing a web design that is just too brilliant to be overlooked

Web designs can often be too complex to be understood by the techno-savvy consumers, leave aside the non-techno savvy people. A study from the journal of the Association for Information Systems found a correlation between impulse shopping and the quality of an ecommerce website's design. Specifically, the higher the perceived quality of design - including subjective elements based on preference and more objective measures like understandability and cohesion - the more likely a shopper is to make an impulse buy. An important finding from the study was that customers can be impacted both positively and negatively by design. While that means some level of personal, subjective perception is in play, over all it was established that a high-quality web design encourages impulse purchasing.

Wrapping up

T he concept of impulse purchasing among consumers is not new in the world of buying and selling. Ever since the business world has had a major transition from physical existence to online platforms, impulse buying among consumers is seen all the more. To this impulse buying scenario, hyperlocal ecommerce has contributed immensely.

The growing craze for hyperlocal ecommerce and on-demand delivery services is likely to contribute to more impulse purchases in the times to arrive. As of now, one thing which is evident is that the consumers having become used to instant and convenient deliveries and hyperlocal ecommerce delivery solutions, do not think twice while going for impulse purchases, especially when it is delivered at their doorstep.

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About the Creator

Dr. Shamael Zaheer Khan

Dr. S.Z. Khan is a revered academic. He brings a unique blend of theory and practice to his position as Vice President (Marketing & Strategy) at a leading SaaS firm. He is also an expert contributor to several platforms of repute.

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