Anchoring and Adjustment

Psychological Theory:
When we make decisions, we rely too heavily (or anchor) on one trait or piece of information. Especially when the situation is unknown, we tend to appraise information based on a single known anchor from which we then make relative adjustments.
(More info on Psychwiki.com: Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic. This is also known as the Focusing effect).

Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites:
Provide your visitors with anchors to influence their decision making (eg. the original price of the product) or present an attribute/ number as being more important than it really is (eg. the number of megapixels on a DSLR camera). Even completely irrelevant numbers can influence the buyer if relevancy is suggested in some way.

This post is part of my Psychology of E-commerce tips series where I present you with a psychological theory and suggest how you can apply this within your e-commerce website.

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