If you’re like me and have signed up for a few newsletters to get online discounts or coupons, apply the adage “out of sight, out of mind”. (I’ve heard of dieters taking this approach as well.)
On the sign-up page for a newsletter from an online merchant, choose “text-only” instead of HTML, if you have the option. Yes, I know this is old school ASCII, and it defeats the purpose if you’re actually interested in what the merchant is offering, but that’s one easy way to reduce impulse buying temptations. No more colorful photos taken from interesting angles luring you away from your Inbox. Better yet, I have an old school account that doesn’t allow HTML, so the newsletters are completely unreadable in this format. On the other hand, if I were a merchant, I’d have to wonder whether it’s even worth offering a text-only option.
Merchandising is an interesting field. I wasn’t aware of it until I worked at a Barnes & Noble bookstore, where an entire department was dedicated to implementing that month’s merchandising instructions from the corporate office. Endcaps (the outward facing featured books at the end of each aisle), tables, chairs, display windows, those large stands in front of the cash register bar — all of them are positioned carefully to encourage impulse buying.
And returning to online shopping, Amazon’s one-click shopping button was created for no other reason than to release impulse buying behavior.
I’ve never enabled this feature myself, but for those who have, do you find that it’s effective?
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