Pronet Advertising

Would you like a tie with that motherboard?

If you have ever been to the Men's warehouse to buy a suit then you'll probably understand the concept of perceptual contrast and how they use it to get you to buy more stuff. The idea here is that they first sell you a suit then they sell you that generic black jacket, socks, ties, and maybe some shirts. All of these are far cheaper than the suit and seem relatively inexpensive after making the decision to buy a suit. You never new what hit you until you get home. You can actually use this same concept to improve the price per conversion of your ecommerce site. Here's how it works.

First of all, I'll delve a bit deeper into what perceptual contrast is. Perceptual contrast is pretty much the equivalent of sticking your hand in warm water after a quick soak in freezing cold water. The water may not be hot, but it will certainly feel hot after that ice water. The human psychology understands things in relative terms and the same concept can be applied to selling. After making a large purchase decision, accessories and other small items seem cheap and very affordable.

Most major ecommerce sites and virtually any other major shopping site take advantage of this in some form. If you buy a computer on Dell's website and add it to your cart, they immediately take you to the next screen which has items like surge protectors, extended warranties, cords, and video games. I always end up looking at these items and it seems so easy to buy them since they are obviously cheap compared to that computer I just bought. I'll often find myself getting that extra surge protector or accessory just because I think it might be useful.

Newegg.com does a similar thing. I went to buy a motherboard and right after I added it to my cart I was offered a combo special on RAM, floppy drive, and other "compatible products" for a bit more money. Amazon.com offers you the option to purchase books that customers bought or liked in combination with the one you are buying. Even when purchasing something as basic as a domain name, GoDaddy throws lots of optional add-ons at you. Many of them are useful, but most of them are not. There are so many iterations of this concept you will see them everywhere if you are looking for the right thing.

The idea for retailers is that you need to get the most mileage out of your conversions. If your customers are on a purchase page try to connect them to some more products that seem cheap in comparison. Go from expensive to less expensive and keep them shopping for a bit longer. If they want to check out then let them, but at least put some products in front of them on the way out. You've spent a lot of effort and money to get those customers ready to buy so make the most of it.