Millions of shoppers are expected to take advantage of online bargains over the Thanksgiving holiday—but buyer beware. Many e-commerce purchases are pushed by misleading tactics designed to get consumers to buy goods they otherwise wouldn’t.
Among the ploys are limited-time offers that never truly end, fake notifications that suggest a product is nearly sold-out and timers that urge shoppers to complete a purchase before the selection expires.
The machinations, which could affect as many as 68.7 million consumers on Cyber Monday, raise the question: Are you a shopper or a mark?
To measure the prevalence of the strategies, researchers at Princeton University and the University of Chicago examined 53,000 product pages from 11,000 shopping websites and found that 11% used what are known as “dark patterns” to exploit online shoppers’ emotions, insecurities and biases.
“They’re trying to get you to make a decision they want,” said Marshini Chetty, who teaches computer science at the University of Chicago and is a co-author of the study. “Most of the stuff is counting on the user making an emotional decision.”