Amazon: Drunk and Prime
A story of how I made my purchase “unintentionally”. I wasn’t even drunk!
A little background. I have Amazon app (v. 11.12.0) installed on my phone. Yes, that was mistake number 1. Being human with little self control over online buying, now my homepage looks like this:
So I have been trying to know what was the reason behind this unintentional-impulsive purchase. What was the trigger and why on earth now I have a phone case in “Your Orders” that said it is arriving on Friday, Jul 6.
- Search made easy.
Have you ever tried the assistance of Alexa? It was super fun. I did use this feature and at this stage, I still have zero intention to buy.
And then… I filter the search result by average customer review. No, the item I later purchased didn’t show up here. So I clicked on one thing that led me to the other. - Product detail is on point.
To me personally, shipping cost is something I always worry about since I don’t live in the US. Matter of fact, it is the only thing that stopped me from having a purchase. But the good thing is, I don’t have to click on another button or go all the way to the checkout page in order for me to know the shipping cost.
Everything is consistently 2 dimensional. I can see the description of the item very well, I can access customer review easily either to click on the stars or scroll to the bottom of the screen. Also the Pay in IDR and Add to Cart button that drives me nuts every time. I ended up using Add to Cart button. There goes the item.
The thing is, I put it in the cart so that maybe, just maybe, I want to take a second look and reconsider my decision. Or a wish list would do, actually. I know Amazon have a section called Pick up where you left off, but I feel like putting it on my cart will secure the item and it’s easy to access. The review was good, so why not. Or maybe, just maybe I wasn’t sure. It was very early in the morning, I just woke up! I had no control over myself? Maybe a little bit drunk. No? - The app has my cc credentials and also my delivery address.
Yep, this wasn’t my very first shot at purchasing. There were couple of attempts in the past to a point where I did put my credit card credentials and also billing/delivery address but never proceed to the final stage of check out. - The time is ticking.
I did not know where it came from, whether it was a gimmick or it was a real deal. But there was this tiny little asshole ticking. Yes. A timer. It said something like, “The deal will be gone in 10:47.” In red, ticking. So there was a reduction on price. Originally, the price is $18.99 with $14.97 for shipping and import fees. But if I buy it before the timer went 00:00, there was this thing called “Lightning Deal” whatever it might be. The price reduction was not explicitly stated. There was only the original price being crossed out. I’m not good at mathematic, guys. So it felt like I’m going to save a million bucks if I do it right here right now. But this is not the reason why I ended up having the item inside Your Orders.
- I clearly cannot read.
As I was stunned on the ticking timer at the checkout page, there was this button that said “Place your order in IDR” I thought this button will convert my order from USD to IDR and that’s all. No it is not. It will PLACE YOUR GODDAMN ORDER (well, in Rupiah), MONICA. So yeah. Were you drunk? No. You just didn’t read properly. What a mere mortal you are.
That being said, it wasn’t completely my fault. I’ll tell you why.
If you are someone that does not really know Amazon, you wouldn’t know that there was “Pick up where you left out” section. You wouldn’t know how to access that. There is a subtle “Add To List” on the product detail but it was so subtle, just below the Add To Cart button, on a busy page. Or maybe I was drunk. Or simply cannot read. So of course, I put it into the cart and then maybe delete it from there and it will be saved (at least this is the only way to have it on a list that I know of).
The timer, the one I referred to as ***hole, creates a recognizable pain point known as fear of missing out, FOMO (Eyal and Hoover, 2014). This causes me into thinking that if I do not buy it now, then I will not get the deal. If I don’t get the deal, I’ll live in such regret. Perfect when you are hesitating.
The crossed out price is done nicely enough to eliminate my mental load into thinking how much I’m going to save. It wasn’t clear how much I was about to save but I knew there was a reduction.
Talking about the deal, it probably is a paid trigger. E-commerce usually uses paid triggers to acquire new user or to generate a first purchase by the user. Well, I guess I was played after all.
And that one friggin button!!!! That’s on me.
Do I regret it? Absolutely not. It was fun. The external triggers were designed so neatly that I don’t mind being played at all.
Do I want to do it again? Probably, if there is more lightning deals that I couldn’t find anymore.
Last but not least, here’s an advice:
