Feel Where Shopper Emotions Come From

The shopper’s emotional state affects how you can best make a sale. The specifics are determined by where the shopping emotions come from. Consumer psychologists talk about integral, incidental, and task-related emotions.

• Integral emotion comes directly from the item being considered for purchase. It might be the delicious pleasure arising from the experience of tasting the sample of ice cream or the piercing grief when deciding on funeral arrangements for a loved one who has died. Thinking about past experiences with the product or service—such as might be set off by an advertisement—can generate integral emotion. Of the three types of shopper emotion, integral emotion is the one least within the control of the retailer. Be sensitive to it, acknowledge it unless this would embarrass the shopper, and then work with it. 
• Incidental emotion consists of the complex set of feelings the shopper brings to the situation. The husband might be relieved at finally being able to buy a new TV, and the wife might be irritated because her mate cajoled her into coming to the store to shop for that same TV. Incidental emotion is open to change once the shopper has arrived in your store. But there are limits. Some people are, by nature, happy or sad or angry or tolerant. The amount of emotion the retailer expresses also makes a difference. Consumers feel greater enjoyment of the shopping experience and more positive feelings toward the retailer when there’s a close match of the salesperson’s level of emotional expression with the consumer’s degree of emotional receptivity. Research findings from Universidad Pùblica de Navarra in Pamplona, Spain indicate that a good technique is to monitor the extent to which your shopper uses emotion words themselves. 
• Task-related emotion arises from the process of choosing among alternatives in the store. The expert might feel pride from the process, but task-related emotion is much more often a negative feeling like frustration. When the frustration is strong, the consumer goes for shortcuts. This might be choosing the last item you showed them just to keep it easy. That’s not a good option for you or the shopper, since it increases the chances of post-purchase regret. The other common consumer response to task-related frustration is to delay the choice. That means losing the sale, at least for now. Therefore, dissolve negative task-related emotions by guiding the shopper through the selection process. 

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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