How Impulsive Buy Products Can Boost Your Revenue on Amazon

Can investing in impulsive buy products that are low cost earn you higher revenue?

Most of us have indulged in impulsive buy products at some point in our lives. Impulse buys are those occasional unplanned, off-the-cuff purchases we make without thinking because we want the item. As the digital world opens up more markets and makes it easier to shop, it also increases the need to buy more and buy instantly.

But what does the concept of impulsive buy products mean for you as a private label product seller? Can you leverage impulse buys to boost your Amazon business?

Before answering that, let’s take a few steps back and look at what impulsive buy products are and how they work in e-commerce:

What Exactly Are Impulsive Buy Products?

Impulsive buy products tend to be items that aren’t actual necessities. They’re things we want to have because they appeal to us and satisfy our emotions on some level. They’re the feel-good items we buy as we exit stores before we have time to rationalize why we bought them.

In brick-and-mortar stores, they’re the items often lined up next to checkout counters or sprinkled through aisles with targeted promotional signs.

They’re the chewy caramel candies and flavored gum next to the cashiers or the environment-friendly shopping bags hanging at the sides of checkout conveyors in grocery stores like Whole Foods.

In beauty stores like Sephora, they’re the sample-sized skin, hair, and makeup products at decreased prices filling the aisle towards the checkout. Stores have these items scattered among more prominent products that are intended buys.

Most impulse buy products elicit quick emotional responses to the promise of instant gratification through smart marketing with lots of visual cues that trigger customers. These items are generally small, reasonably uncomplicated, and can be grabbed off the shelf in stores.

The principals of commerce aside, impulse buy products work a bit differently in e-commerce because the items aren’t physically in front of customers.

How Does Impulse Buying Work Online?

The strategic placement of impulse buy products that help brick-and-mortar stores work for online ones too, but in a different way.

Instead of finding clever ways to arrange them in shops, so customers see and react on cue, digital platforms entice customers through advertisements, website layout, offers, convincing copy, and evocative imagery.

Paid search marketing through Google and social media is a great way to invite potential customers to your Amazon seller page.

Creating compelling copy with relevant keywords and applying those keywords in the ads is the first step towards getting people interested in your product.

Your ad copy can have deals, discounts, promotions, coupon codes, gift ideas, and sponsored products—all of which draw in the customer.

The idea here is for your offer to intrigue people, so they click on your link. Paid ads do for online marketing what promotional signs do for brick-and-mortar stores.

Once people click your link and get on your page, there are other ways to compel them to buy your product(s) and become your customers. Amazon does this in very strategic ways throughout its desktop page, mobile site, and the app.

How Amazon Optimizes Impulse Buying

Amazon’s webpage is teeming with opportunities to make spontaneous purchases through these pages:

• New and Interesting Finds
• Browsing history
• Deals
• Categories
• Bestsellers
• Promos
• Recommendations

The mobile site has similar options, but with a more mobile-friendly interface that strategically offers deals first, followed by promos, and then the new Dash buttons which make reordering products even quicker and easier. Amazon also reintroduces sales and promos at the very end.

On the app, Amazon introduces the shoppers’ recommendations first, then offers the Dash buttons, and disperses targeted widgets throughout the site.

None of these design elements are accidental. The strategic placement of every button on all three versions of Amazon’s website invites buyers to buy right then and there and return to buy more with the same urgency.

When you sell something on Amazon, you list your product in one or more categories and sub-categories. However, the chances of your product showing up in other places on the site depend on how well your product sells and the services you use on Amazon (more on that later).

Additionally, the algorithm used to showcase impulse buy products on Amazon also depend on the kinds of items you pick to sell.

Amazon does a lot of the work for its sellers and can drive the traffic you need to your listing, and that begins with what you choose to sell and how well you market it to get the highest rankings.

What Kind of Products Make for Good Impulse Buys On Amazon?

The most common types of impulse buy products are the following:

• Add-ons/Complimentary products
• Discounted/Sale items
• Upsells: buying one more of the same
• Cross-sells: purchasing another higher-end product

While Amazon’s marketing strategy works to get customers onto its site and stay there until they buy, sellers do need to market their products.

Part of that marketing comes in the form of paid ads, which we discussed earlier. Targeting impulse buyers with sharp, well-planned, and alluring ads should promise immediate gratification at the onset.

The other part of marketing impulse buy products lies in branding through seller websites and landing pages. Amazon can attract the customers, but without a well-designed webpage that showcases your brand, your product won’t carry the kind of weight you want for it to succeed in the Amazon marketplace. Never underestimate the power of branding!

How Do Impulsive Buy Product Benefit Third-Party Sellers?

When you target impulse buyers through the types of products that make good spontaneous sells, you focus more on marketing strategy than a marketing campaign. Your ads and the initial offer is key to your success.

Your product doesn’t have to be a necessity, but if it’s alluring enough with the right message, you create the illusion of need. Then you offer benefits for immediate purchase to convert buyers into frequent customers and retarget impulse buyers with more paid ads. The money you save goes right back into building and expanding your business and brand.

Impulse buyers adhere to a particular buying attitude and habits without conscious effort. They’re the customers who already enjoy shopping and are always looking to buy. They don’t need a huge push, but they do need to be enticed to open their wallets with immediacy and urgency.

When you sell impulse buy products to such shoppers, you see a high return on investment because they’ll likely come back for more. You can also remarket directly to them through email and social media using the data you’ve gathered from their purchase.

Things to Keep in Mind About Impulsive Buy Products

As with everything, selling impulse buy products has its drawbacks.

The most obvious one would be choosing the wrong product for this type of sell. If your product isn’t researched and marketed well, you can bet it won’t do well with the impulse buying model. Products that are too big, expensive, faulty, and require too many considerations to purchase won’t work for sellers who like quick and easy buys.

One of the essential steps to sell your impulse buy products on Amazon after doing the due diligence is to get rankings that avail more services for you. If your product ranks well and becomes a “Best Seller,” you can offer customers additional buying options.

Another possible disadvantage of selling impulse buy products is that the things you choose may have a short shelf-life. In that case, you have to be ready for another product to keep up with the spontaneous shoppers’ interest or alter your marketing strategy often, so they keep buying from you.

Where Do We Go from Here?

Per recent polls, 40% of Americans are now buying though e-commerce, 31% are purchasing impulse buys through computers, tablets or phones (compared to 19% the year before), and 90% of impulse buyers are millennials (CreditCards.com).

Judging from these statistics, we can safely assume that impulse buy products look increasingly profitable if you find the right private label product that fits the mold. Moreover, the numbers will likely rise as more Millennials come of age and explore online shopping, which is now trending on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

Given the progression of e-commerce and digital marketing, it only makes sense for sellers to start tapping into impulse buy products with more focus and hit the market while it’s still hot and gets even hotter!

To get some ideas on product ideas that could work as impulse buy products, check out our Goldmine series on finding private label product ideas. If you have any thoughts and opinions on impulse buys, leave us a comment below!