More Choice
There’s no shortage of choice in online e-commerce. Choice is good, yet too much choice and there is a burden to navigate between the good and the bad options.
We’re wired to fear making a wrong decision and so faced with the abundance of choice, we typically do one of two things: rely on habit or, if we must, then adopt strategies that simplify decision-making.
In categories like CPG, where multiple decisions must be made in each ‘trip’ the responsibility to guide the shopper is extra strong.
Less is more
Just like Mrs. Armitage from the famous story ‘Mrs. Armitage on Wheels’, digital content creators just can’t help thinking of ways to add.
In the children’s story, before very long she has added three very loud horns, a bucket of water to wash her hands, a complete tool kit, a seat for her dog Breakspear, two umbrellas, a cassette player, and a mouth-organ. She had catered for every eventuality and, at the same time overwhelmed the poor bicycle.
For the bicycle, think shopper. Super abundance of choice is a reality of life in our industrial society. The point is that we’ve got to work within the context of high choice-abundance and make it easier for the shopper when information is overwhelming. How can we find ways of easing the cognitive load so we can shop better and faster? Especially for a routine shopping trip.
Shoppers refuse to read much text when shopping CPG. In observational research, it is found that around 70% are scrolling within 10 seconds and over 90% within 15 seconds.
The way through
It all starts with the image. In e-commerce it’s the first thing we see (and sometimes the only thing we see). Must we continue to clutter our e-commerce images?
The great news is that we don’t have to guess how to improve our PDP content. Start with optimizing visuals.
- Search for your brand online, using general search terms.
- Embed the GS1 guidelines into the workflow.
- Identify the distinctive brand assets and hierarchy. It’ll make it easier to let go of the other details.
- Audit your catalog – likely 20% of your images are poor performers. They become the priority for improvement.
- Share meta-learning enterprise-wide. For many CPG’s the challenge is getting best-practice to every corner.
Reduce cognitive load
Four tips for creative success
(1) Create appeal through familiar brand icons
Nestle Purina prioritize the brand signifier, Felix, on all their primary images
(2) Promote only the main message
Mars simplifies the packshot and use the carousel images for other messages
(3) Apply best practice for Mobile-Ready Hero Images
Unilever applies the GS1 guidelines to improve the accessibility of images
(4) 3D shots are important for sizing, but often top/side panels add clutter
Effective examples from KC and Colgate Palmolive
Try eFluence for Free
You have thousands of images. It’s way too many to apply conventional testing efficiently.
Our prediction algorithms do the heavy lifting. For example, with Flash.PDP™, the hard processing work is done. The algorithm references brand new images against the database of similar images from the same category. It calculates whether the image looks more like a top performer or has closer visual similarity to images that don’t work with shoppers.
The algorithm will tell us straight away and most of the time, straight away is when the decision must be made.
A game-changer in winning at the digital shelf and giving CPG’s the edge with shoppers in a hurry.
Find out more by contacting us at info@behaviorally.com for a free demo!
THE AUTHOR
Adrian Sanger helps insight start-ups, scale-ups, and established agencies bring winning products to market. He is a Director at eFluence™, the technology division of Behaviorally. He has helped in the build of Flash.PDP™, from the very beginning and now works with clients to shape the program and realize the value. He is a classically trained researcher, assisting C-level Insight teams in tackling their biggest growth challenges, including finding market opportunity, elevating their product strategy, and positioning, and developing winning go-to-market innovations. Connect with Adrian on LinkedIn.
