When you shop online at any number of brand websites they must sell to you twice before they secure your purchase. It is self-explanatory that the brand must sell you on the product or service that they offer but the less apparent sale they must make is that of ethos. Essentially, a brand must leverage their website experience to convince the buyer to trust them and their offering without them ever interacting with it.
When it comes to physical retail this is much easier. Apple stores exemplify this beautifully where they have all of their latest offerings displayed on inviting tables for customers to try for themselves. This was the result of their market research which showed that once a person touches and physically interacts with an item their brain immediately forms a chemical association of ownership. As a result, not purchasing the product feels like they are giving up ownership rather than simply walking away.
The Apple website attempts to emulate this physical experience with various design elements that engage the user and help them envision physically interacting with the products on the page. Apple’s website does this through rendered images and videos that make the product look as though you can reach out and touch it.
The brand Master&Dynamic, which sells luxury headphones, takes a very similar approach. Master&Dynamic produces incredibly captivating videos for their website to create a sense of tactility.
These kinds of promotional materials draw the viewer in and create a sense of ethos. If the brand spent the time and money to make such beautiful web content, naturally, the customer assumes the product will be of similar quality.
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Ethan David
This is really interesting, Luke! I hadn’t thought about the theory behind Apple’s displays, but it makes a lot of sense. I feel much more comfortable purchasing something new when I’ve had the chance to try it out myself first. I’ve been learning in my ethics class that a history of good ethical decisions is enough for us to trust a robot or in this case a company, and I think that lines up with your theory of requiring two purchases for us to trust a company!