Psychology Hacks Used to Make You Spend More PART 2

The Success Bistro
4 min readNov 10, 2021

According to a survey, only 5% of people have never felt guilty about buying something. The majority of us have regretted a purchase at some point in our lives. And a lot of this has to do with how marketers use psychological hacks and cognitive biases to make you do that.

This is another compilation of 13 psychological tricks marketers use to make you buy more.

#1 Touch and Mimicry

Studies show that a woman’s touch, like a gentle tap on the shoulder, will make customers feel more secure in spending money. Additionally, having a salesperson mimic or mirror your gestures will make you more willing to trust them.

#2 Odd-Even Pricing

Consumers are more likely to choose a price ending in an odd number that’s just below an even whole one. Like “$3.97”.

#3 Show Prices in Installments Rather Than a Total

Consumers tend to get anchored on smaller prices subconsciously, even if they know the total price. This is like going to a furniture store and being told “the dresser is $100, the bedframe is $150, and the mattress is only 125” instead of just being told, “your complete purchase is $275”.

#4 Remove the Pain of Paying

When making a purchase, you feel better about it when you pay upfront. Uber revolutionized the taxi industry by having consumers pay upfront instead of at the end of the ride. This gives riders a less painful and more memorable experience.

#5 Phase the Discounts

When people miss a big sale, they get disappointed. However, if it miraculously is on sale again, but at a slightly less discounted price, people may jump to buy it out of fear that they’ll miss their chance again.

#6 Small Daily Equivalence

You may have had a marketer tell you to look at your fairly large purchase as a broken-down version of how much it costs daily instead. Like saying “this will be a cup of coffee a day, for a month” to make it seem more affordable.

#7 Red Prices

The Success Bistro

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