The Retailer Autumn Edition 2021

THE RE TA I L ER

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6 BEHAVIOURAL TRENDS IMPACTING THE WAYWE’LL SHOP THIS CHRISTMAS

Jonny Protheroe Head of Market Insights Google U.K.

Alistair Rennie Research Lead - Thought Leadership, EMEA Google U.K.

T his Google research shines a light on some of the key biases that influence our purchase decisions — and how retailers learn from them Shoppers looking for ideas and inspiration this Christmas have a world of choice: search engines, price comparison sites, aggregators, review sites, social media, and more. Add a reopened high street back into the mix, and this creates a very messy middle between trigger and purchase for retailers to understand and untangle. It’s a challenge that we’ve been exploring in depth at Google. We revis- ited our Decoding Decisions research, where we explored what the messy middle meant for brands — and how retailers can now adopt some of these tips for their own marketing strategies.

Two mental modes where customers are won and lost

In the messy middle of the purchase journey, people look for informa- tion about a category’s products and brands and then consider all the options available. We unravelled this spaghetti-like mess of touchpoints and split shoppers’ behaviours into two distinct states: exploration and evaluation. When you’re exploring, you’re adding products to your list of potentials. When you’re evaluating, you’re pruning that list back down. But because consumers are constantly encouraged to go back into exploration mode by the sheer amount of choice, they can end up feeling overwhelmed. For retailers looking to drive sales and growth this peak season, this clearly presents a challenge, but there is also an opportunity to shift or completely disrupt consumer’s preferences, both for the brands they buy and the choice of the retailer. One option for retailers this Christmas season is applying behavioural science to their marketing strategies and broader retail proposition. We’ve picked out six behaviours or biases from our review that we feel are particularly relevant to the space we call the messy middle.

Watch now: Thinkwith Google’s Global Executive Editor, Natalie Zmuda, and Google U.K.’s Research Lead - Thought Leadership, EMEA, Alistair Rennie, discuss the messy middle in more detail. As part of this work, we set up shopping observation studies, search trend analyses, and an experiment with real in-market shoppers sim- ulating 310,000 purchase scenarios across multiple verticals. Here are the key takeaways and what they mean for marketers this festive season and beyond.