Shopping Habit: Power of Online Flash Sale Sites

Every morning iPhones ding, Blackberrys vibrate, and Andriods flash with new emails containing a list of the day’s online flash sales. An hour before the sale, another notification pops up. At noon, fingers feverishly hit F5 and the sale starts. Within ten minutes, sighs are heard through offices, classrooms, and cafeterias—everyone just scored an amazing deal. This is the online sample sale sequence that features companies like Gilt Group, RueLaLa, Hautelook, and ideeli. This is the shopping habit.

We recently picked up a fascinating read called The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg. Suddenly, everything about the online sample sale model made sense. We learned from the book that habits follow a cycle initiated by a cue, followed by a routine, and completed with a reward. We are cued by online sample sale sites every morning with their sale alert emails and cued again by their hour-before-sale reminder emails or texts. At noon, we routinely open up not only our lunch boxes but also the sample sale websites and go through the motions of browsing, adding to our virtual cart, and purchasing. Upon purchase, we are rewarded with great satisfaction at having scored a fantastic deal paired with excited anticipation for our new goods. This habit translates to phenomenal business for online flash sale companies.

Recent research (Duhigg 2012) showed that when we enter our habit loop, our brain activity decreases and we begin relying on our basal ganglia. This means that when we form a shopping habit, we are making mindless purchases rather than conscious ones. By appealing to our habit loop, online flash sale companies are poised for success because they are encouraging us to form a shopping habit. And as the saying goes, old habits die hard.

Post by Julia Wu