Friday, January 15, 2016

Bachelor of Business in International Business (NFQ Level 8)

The Influence of Colours in Irish Customers Online

Buying Choices

Radu Acalfoaie

Colour is an important factor in our daily existence and it has been known that can influence emotions, perceptions and mod. Hypothesis: Majority of Irish customer’s online behaviour is influenced by Colours psychology. Choosing the right colours can help the business grow, increase brand awareness and sales. Therefore there is a market to create a colour consultancy company who can guide them choose influential colours

Introduction

Figure 1 Hue, Saturation and Value. Gramillion, Ben. Three Properties of Colour. Digital image. Webdesigner Depot

“To asses how colours influence Irish customer’s online buying choices”

To identify the motivation for online purchases and understand customers behaviour.To assess the level of awareness for influential colours in buying choices.To define how important is colour for customers decisions and businesses.To evaluate how consultancy services for influential colours could be beneficial for both customers and businesses.To estimate if there is a market for colour consultancy services in Ireland.

Objectives

What is the level of awareness for influencing colours?How colours can influence buyers?What colours can influence buyers?Are customers more likely to purchase when influenced by a colour?What are the costs to hire/employ/consult specialists?How much are the companies willing to pay for colour pick services?

Questions

Theory of Colours written by Goethe (1810) was one of the first books where influence of colours warmth was described encompassing details about shadows, refraction and chromatic aberration.According to “What Brand Colors Say About Your Business – Marketo” Miller (2012) colour is the first characteristic when first time notice a logo. In top 100 world companies, 29% use red for their logo, 33% blue, 28% black or grayscale and only 13% use yellow. From those 95% use one or two color and only 5% use more than 2 colours.“How Colors Affect Conversion Rate”, Patel (2014). The writer discusses that colours can influence brand recognition by 80% and 90% of the customers purchases are influenced by visual factors in less than 90 seconds.

Literature review

Another study “Impact of color on marketing”, Singh (2006) has exposed that some response to colours can be generalised and other can differ for each individual, culture, age and gender.

One of the most important researches for this project is “The Effect of Red Background Color on Willingness-to-pay: The Moderating Role of Selling Mecha-nism”. The authors Bachi and Cheema (2013) stated that traditional shops and websites use different colours in influence customers choices and reactions towards purchasing products when exposed.

Literature review

Quantitative –Qualitative, Survey via Survey MonkeyA semi structured self-administrated questionnaire was used by the author to answer the research objectives, preserve confidentiality, obtain accurate data and maximise the response rate.Questionnaire:10 closed-ended and semi open-ended questions Sample of 29 respondents: females 48% and only 44% are males

Research Methods

72% of the participants are shopping online 69% of participants are aware colour can influence mod62% consider colour important when making a purchase90 % consider colour consultancy services beneficial 55.56% would employ colour consultants50% estimated between 301-500 euro

Results

Retailers are using Color psychology in traditional and online shops.Colour psychology and motivation in the online behaviour cannot be generalised.Choosing the right colour for a shop, restaurant, and website can connect with the right audience and increase sales.There is no specialised company for colour consultancy brand development in Ireland.However such services may not be required as technology continues to develop.

Conclusion

Marketers should carefully choose and test what colours and variations of hue, value and saturation are more beneficial to attract customers.Each manager is directly responsible for finding testing and implementing the right colours for their environment.Generalising results from small samples of participants may lead to untrue results that’s why a bigger sample is recommended.Collection of qualitative data from interviews and focus groups should also be encouraged for future researchesThe duration of the research should be increased to allow enough time for data gathering and analysing.

Recommendations

Bagchi, R., Cheema, A. , (2013). The Effect of Red Background Color on Willingness-to-Pay: The Moderating Role of Selling Mechanism. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(5), 947–960. http://doi.org/10.1086/666466Elliot A., J., (2015) Color and psychological functioning: a review of theoretical and empirical work. Front. Psychol. 6:368. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00368Goethe, W., Theory of Colours, trans. Charles Lock Eastlake, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982Kissmetrics. 2010. How do colors affect purchases? [ONLINE] Available at: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/color-psychology/. [Accessed 24 November 15]Miler. 2012. What Brand Colors Say About Your Business – Marketo. [ONLINE] Available at: http://blog.marketo.com/2012/06/true-colors-what-your-brand-colors-say-about-your-business.html. [Accessed 01 December 15].Patel. 2014. How Colors Affect Conversion Rate. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.quicksprout.com/2014/01/24/how-colors-affect-conversion-rate/. [Accessed 21 December 15].Bottomley P., A., Doyle, J., The interactive effects of colors and products on perceptions of brand logo appropriateness doi: 10.1177/1470593106061263Singh, S. (2006), Impact of Color on Marketing, Management Decision, Vol. 44, No. 6, pp. 783-789

Bibliography

Questions & Discussion