The Luxury of Online Shopping Cart Use

Recently, I read an interesting article1 concerning the manner in which online shoppers interact with shopping carts on internet retail sites.  The article caught my eye as personally, I am very prone to "window shopping"on websites selling luxury items on my one-day wish list. I will typically add items to the shopping cart that I have no intention of buying.  Occasionally, I have been known to go a step further and click purchase--against my better judgment and on a complete impulse.  It's just too easy.  Without the physical interaction of a physical shopping cart, a physical sales representative, and handing over a physical bank card, such transactions create an entirely different range of emotions in my head.  And those emotions signal that I am much more comfortable and susceptible to clicking the PURCHASE button, than I would be to standing before a cash register.  Particularly when PayPal or a similar one click, no need to pull out the wallet system is involved.

The article divided the online shopper's use of the shopping cart function into two linked categories:  organizational/research (goal oriented) and entertainment (experiential).  Entertainment use is basically placing items in the shopping cart as a cure for boredom or with no intention of actually purchasing an item, while organizational/research cart use involves placing items in a cart to narrow down a selection, or compare items side-by-side before committing to a purchase.  One theory proposed in the article is that shoppers who use the cart on the retail website for entertainment purposes are much more likely to then use the cart for further organizational and research purposes, ultimately leading to a purchase. In contrast, passive website browsers who have less active interaction with the internet retail store are more likely to move on without purchase--even though both entertainment cart users and passive website browsers both originally did not intend on purchasing anything at all.  The article suggests that once at the organizational/research stage of use, shoppers experience positive feelings of control and freedom in the browsing experience.  Going further, the authors then draw more hypotheses of some of these same shoppers abandoning their carts due to pricing and security concerns--which apparently is a big problem for online retail.  (Although I would imagine in a specific luxury goods category, the pricing comparison would be less of a factor as many of the prices are stable across vendors--And if a consumer actually considers spending $520 on a pair of shoes, what's another $20 anyway?).  However, what really drew my attention in the reading was the recognition of what I have experienced personally while website browsing.

If you had asked me before why I would tend to "accidentally" buy luxury goods on a whim, I would have reaffirmed the ease of purchase--but honestly, I couldn't put my finger on why I actually did it.  Honestly, the reward is not even is great as an actual physical purchase.  I'm one of those shoppers who experiences elation at the feeling of a large paper bag in my hand--the more structured and strong the handles, the better.  See Burberry bag to the right for the perfect example.  It's sturdy, ties w/ brown ribbon, and gold embossing.  I'm always excited to use the item I just purchased, to look at the item, but really, holding that bag is the trigger to my endorphins.  When I shop online, the thrill just isn't there.  Once I click purchase there's...nothing.  And yet, 9 out of 10 times, I'm much more likely to shell out for something I would never purchase at a physical store.  So, what gives?


Basically, as the article suggested, by placing "dream" items in the online shopping cart, I (or the generic cart using online shopper) invests his or her emotions and time in actively selecting, and interacting with the products.  These feelings of control over what we "hold" for a while in the cart allows us the freedom to try out the idea of purchase, before we commit.  Online browsing becomes an experience and draws us into sealing the deal with a purchase.  If we have five items in our cart, and remove four--we may as well buy the last item since we've been so good and given up the others.  In an actual store--especially one for luxury goods, either we are less likely to place items in the actual shopping cart or the store doesn't even have such things as carts or baskets.  If it does, and we perform the same organization and selection process, we are aware that others could be watching us put back the products we choose not to buy.  This greater sense of embarrassment, guilt, or dissonance between our desires and would-be actions keeps us from picking the products up in the first place.  In the privacy of your home, it is just you, the website, and your computer who are involved in the movement of an item into your cart.  Thus, playing around with the cart contents is almost a game, and making a final purchase is a reward.


Personally, I haven't seen any websites that try to lure you into using their shopping cart features.  However, if I am not alone in my experiences, and the article's authors are correct in their hypothesis, perhaps such an effort is just the next step in experiential marketing--specifically in the luxury goods category, where the lowest price is not the driving factor in purchase.


Natasha Gaggar


1  Close, A. and C. Kukar-Kinney, "The Determinants of Customer's Online Shopping Cart Abandonment," J. of Acad. Mark. Sci., 38: 240-250, 2010.