Monthly Archives - December 2018

Book Review : The Choice Factory by Richard Shotton

Book Review : The Choice Factory: 25 behavioural biases that influence what we buy
Author : Richard Shotton
Review of podcast interview on Everyone Hates Marketers podcast

Building a brand is tough – what’s worse is that destroying a brand is easy. Standing on the top of the roof and shouting (ok, nationwide TV ads on a major sporting event) does not build a brand with the message you want.

People have biases and they react to the message. Effectively brand is what someone perceives.

The Choice Factory: 25 Behavioral Biases That Influence What We Buy by Richard Shotton is a great book. Richard was recently interviewed on the “Everyone hates Marketers” podcast. Here is a summary of the podcast where they discussed 3 of the 25 biases. The podcast was very interesting overall, but here is the brief as a review of the biases.

Bias 1 : The pratfall effect

A pratfall is defined by Merriam Webster dictionary as “a humiliating mishap or blunder”. It’s the idea that if you admit a weakness or you exhibit a flaw you become more appealing.

Examples : VW. They went out and said, “Ugly is skin deep.” So, admit they’re ugly.
Listerine, the taste you hate twice a day. They admitted they taste awful.
Guinness, good things come to those who wait. They admitted they were slow.

It can be applied to reviews : Northwestern University did a study in 2015 … “As the product review gets better, likelihood to purchase increases until it hits a tipping point. So ,somewhere between 4.2 and 4.4 out of five. And then after that point, if the review gets any better then likelihood to purchase declines.”

Perfection was not trusted. It was seen as too good to be true. Consumers didn’t trust perfection. Most brands do not use this effect and hence people don’t trust brands.

Bias 2 : Confirmation bias.

It’s the idea that people are very good at maintaining their existing point of view. For example, if you dislike a brand and you hear a message from them. Your brain can generate counter argument after counter argument which maintains it’s existing point of view. It just doesn’t agree with the new information.

Research has shown that distraction is a good tactic to move away from confirmation bias.

Example :
“In the late-80s British Airways were struggling with perceptions of quality.

What they didn’t just do is talk about how they had amazing stewards and stewardesses, great big seats. What they did was always accompany their ads with this wonderfully evocative piece of classical music. Now there is no logical argument about quality. Therefore the brain doesn’t come up with a list of counter-arguments.“

Bias 3 : Habit

“what are the moments when people’s habits become destabilized? And therefore as an advertiser you can persuade them. ‘Cause there’s an argument that’s there’s a huge amount of complexity in life.”

People buy brands that they always do. To make them change is not persuasion as they are not even considering the brand.

A tactic discussed is “people’s habits become destabilized just after they undergo a life event. So what I mean by that — a life event is getting married, divorced, retired, moving house.”

During a research conducted by the author “what we found was that on pretty much every life event and every product we looked at people between two and three times more likely to try a new brand in that short window after they had undergone a life event.”

So, as a brand think of the moments or events in your customers’ lives that you can introduce your brand or “putting a disproportionate influence on people when they are entering your category” or personalization.

However, he cautions about over personalization “If it tries to target different messages to different people. To begin with, that will look amazing. It will have a great effect but sooner or later we ill overhear those messages and therefore we’ll know that it stands for nothing or that it can stand for many different things. So it’s value is a signal to other people about what we believe in no longer stands.”


If you liked the review or book please post your comments . If you want to see more reviews, let us know on the chat.

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Progressive Web Apps in Magento 2 – First Opinion

Magento released 2.3 and that included PWA Studio to help build progressive web apps.

Progressive Web Apps is a technology that allows a website to act like an app on a mobile device – in that it does not need continuous connectivity to the internet. This gives the benefit of easy and quick navigation.

When it comes to Magento software technology, there is no better person than Hashid Hameed, CEO of Codilar to get some first hand information. Long before the official release, their team has been playing around with PWA technology so they are ready when the official announcement actually came. Here is excerpts from the interview :

luroConnect : What type of Magento stores is PWA most suitable for?

Hashid : PWA is suitable for all types of stores regardless of the industry and target audience. However it will be a must-have in the near future for stores who have significant mobile audience. With the growing experiential demands of the modern shopper and limited reach & high cost of native apps, PWA will become the saviour for such stores.

luroConnect : In order to make the most of this technology stores have to upgrade to Magento 2.3 – how much of a effort is that? (Hey we just moved from 1.x not long ago!)

Hashid: Haha, you don’t have to worry. It’s just like another incremental build to the existing platform. Magento 2.3 is one of the most promising upgrades so far to the platform. It adds in a a lot of new features. However possibilities of conflicts with custom code and non-supported extensions cannot be ruled out.

luroConnect : OK, I am on Magento 2.3, how long before I can get a PWA app up and running?

Hashid : Magento has released a PWA Studio for developers to speed up the PWA development. Roughly, a PWA can go live in 2-3 months for a usual Magento store.

luroConnect : Will my PWA app share my website theme?

Hashid : Not really. PWA will have its own theme. Magento has a default theme called Venia for PWA.

luroConnect : Do I need to tell my website visitor to install an app?

Hashid : Certainly not. Not having to install an app is one of the biggest advantage of PWA. You get an app-like experience without installing an app, how cool is that? Plus users can easily add the PWA to their homescreen and use it like a regular app. Check out the demo below and see for yourself.

luroConnect : How is PWA different from AMP?

Hashid : AMP is great for blogs and news websites where the main content is usually static. Amp comes with a lot of feature restrictions which is simply not suitable for a highly dynamic needs of an online store. For example, to be accepted as an AMP page and enable Google AMP network to deliver the cached AMP pages, developers must use Google’s library of approved HTML, Javascript, CSS and analytics tags. You will not be able to use A/B Testing, personalization, recommendations etc.

On the other hand, PWA is completely in the hands of the developer. There is no restriction at all.

luroConnect : Does my desktop experience enhance with PWA or is it just mobile?

Hashid : Though PWA talks more about mobile experience, most benefits can be reaped for desktop as well. Faster load time (no page loads), easier  product discovery, intuitive navigation are some of these. However, majority of the merchants are mostly likely to roll-out the PWA only for mobile audience initially.

luroConnect : If I have updated the category or price how quickly can my PWA store know?

Hashid : Ideally, there should not be any delay as the PWA directly talks to Magento’s new GraphQL API. If the API responses are cached for even faster response by the developers, there could be a delay. But this is totally in the hands of the developer. It depends on the store requirement.

luroConnect : How about stock updates? I want that information to be out in the forefront.

Hashid : The above answer applies here as well.

luroConnect : Can a checkout happen without internet connectivity?

Hashid : Yes, in an ideal PWA, the complete checkout can happen offline. The order will be synced in Magento when the internet connectivity is back. Just like, how some of the cloud POS systems work offline. However, having an offline checkout could lead to other complexities in business such as ensuring stock availability.

If you want to try out the new feature, Codilar has arranged a demo site https://www.codilar.com/blog/magento-2-pwa-demo-venia/ If you want to get in touch with Hashid email to hello@codilar.com

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