For retailers, shopping is the art of persuasion. Though there are many factors that influence how and what consumers buy. However, a great deal is decided by visual cues, the strongest and most persuasive being color. When marketing new products it is crucial to consider that consumers place visual appearance and color above other factors such as sound, smell and texture. To learn more about color psychology and how it influences purchases, see our latest infographic.
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Wow. That’s really insightful. I think you also just sold me on the whole Kissmetrics idea, as these things can be specifically tracked and managed from having this type of auto-input.
Excellent! Thanks for sharing!
Beautiful and informative!
this is a load of bull
i know there is too much info i can not read that all are you MAD!!!
A perfect example of a moronic little girl.
Interesting information, I never would have guessed such a high percentage of purchases were related to color over smell and texture.
Color psychology is pretty fascinating stuff. (Ergo, why I protested when my teen wanted to paint her bedroom vivid red and why my dull olive-green living room depresses me.)
One thing to note as well is that the shade of colors also affects response. Blue is great for businesses, because it conveys grounded, established trust and security… but only if it’s that particular shade of IBM blue or a little darker.
Sky blue is definitely not going to get the same response :)
Good call.
My 16 yr. old just painted his room RED and BLACK and all the accesories are WHITE. It looks amazing!!!!! Red, when used properly, looks stunning!
I agree, red can be a very powerful color. At the same, if it isn’t used the right way, it can come across negatively.
Great advice. My den has been an olive green color for yeas. And while I feel relaxed in it, it bores me to pieces! Time for a change!
Nice! I’m gonna test the orange :)
Also find this fascinating and while it can often be straightforward to apply for clients, to then incorporate this into my own marketing I find less easy – even though I do know my ideal customer well. Perhaps that’s the time to let someone else loose on the branding!
Thanks for this – nicely covered and something to pass on.
Very interesting. So would a combination of black and green be good if you are marketing high end products & services?
Excellent … some people or even some companies doesn’t believe in “colors”, this post is so helpful. … thanks….
Maybe you should do a chart on how spelling *affects purchases. =)
(Other influences)
Haha, or maybe something about pink being used to market products to *women rather than just one woman. ;)
Personally I’d rather go for one on the sensationalities invoked by various colours :)
It is pretty amusing to see small errors like this in an infographic about how fickle consumers are and how easily they’re turned away by small things that don’t really matter
That is an amazing infographic. It is by far the most useful one I have ever had the chance to look at. Thanks!
Beautiful infographic!
I don’t think color is the main subject of the infographic, but I liked the way you visually explained the reactions of people according to primary colors.
One thing that I would like to suggest is to make clear that color is after all a tendency. Tomorrow the today’s “luxury color” could change, and certainly it will, it all depend of the context. Yes, it could take a long.. long time, but at the end it is tendency.
Thanks for this great resource. I’m very pleased to have something to point people at when discussing the subject.
But it’s important to bear in mind that colour preferences do vary between different countries. If you need a reminder of this, try getting into the habit of looking at the airport car parks when you fly in and out of international airports. Colours which are popular for cars in some countries are never seen in others.
poo
dis is a load of bull shit
double poo
double pooo
Typical hivemind of “great post” comments. This is a pretty poor colour choice for an infographic that is ironically talking about the effect of colour.
Typical bitter jealous snowflake minded individual trying to stand out. Have to agree about the background color on it though, it could be a better contrast to the foreground colors. I would wager a girl who shops at Old Navy made it ; )
I can’t really see the old navy, but the graph looks fine to me. Which color do you think would have made it better?
Interesting to see the stats on this. I’m sure there is some relevance to it, but my worry is, this could lengthen the testing process for some newbie conversion fanatics.
For me, this is goings straight to the designers i work with to remind them about who there audience is…
I’m wondering if the color affects purchases based on the hue itself, or if we as consumers have become conditioned to certain colors signifying certain things, i.e. red for ‘sales’, black for luxury items, etc.? I suspect it is some conbination of the two.
Wow, thanks, this is great. Does this cross cultures? Do colors invoke same feelings in other markets?
Have their been studies as to whether this impacts online audiences as well?
Colour is a major significance in building brand awareness. It influences a sub-conscious association to a company. It is of paramount importance and is an integral fundamental consideration in the design process.
Why on earth don’t people making inforgraphics EVER quote the sources of their info?! I’m super interested in the 1% every 100ms statistic, but I’m gonna have to research that for myself know. Considering infographics are all about extremely useful user experience, it’s mind bogglingly annoying that I’ll have to google that just to make sure it’s not total balls.
Very interesting. Are these colors globally or just US/ European based.
Thanks!
Sam Abraham | Marketing & Outreach, Actionly
http://www.actionly.com : Social Media Monitoring & Listening platform
All the design and color and art books that I have all make claims about color meaning, but I’m certain some of it is cultural, and none of the books or writers who assign meanings to colors ever give one shred of evidence supporting their claims.
So, I want to know how you know colors have certain meanings to the general public.
This is really great information but the experience is kind of ironic because the chart is quite fuzzy and more than a little hard to read. That’s the kind of thing that definitely turns of internet browsers. If you used fuzzy text and graphics on a real product package shoppers would assume it was real cheap junk.
Fascinating research, great post!
I remember an article somewhere that baby carrots was going to be designed as junk food to entice kids to eat it more – http://bit.ly/a3s38o.
Aside from aesthetics, I kind of agree with the chart regarding color. I tend to read more greenish or blue-ish websites since they feel more relaxing to read. And sometimes black, since it feels “sophisticated” at times.
Great graph! Could’ve had it a little bigger though. Thanks!
Very nice graph! What do you think about the color ‘white’? I guess this should also be discussed in compare to the color ‘black’.
Nice article..
Unfortunately.. I didn’t like the color used in this blog..
My eyes were stressing when I was reading the blog..May be i would have liked it if the color is dark blue – Color of Trust ;)
Sorry about my (harsh & straight) comments.. But darker (navy blue) color would have given justice to the Article, which is awesome..
Color could have been used much more effectively in this infographic. It’s actually pretty poorly designed, as well. Look at the Color and Consumer portion – not laid out very well. The curves on the lines are not drawn smoothly and the Kleptocracy font choice is poor. Also, nobody must’ve told you that the color yellow does not read well on a light blue background, especially to people with certain types of color blindness. Poor design overall.
Interesting to say the least – I’ll be weary of this next time I go shopping..
A lot of poor gramar … I can’t take anything seriously when there are typos and gramatical errors on something that’s supposed to be “professional.” i.e.: “creates the sensational of …” Should be, “creates the sensation of …” And there are more.
“The proof is in the reading and the better reading is in the proofing!” jbdean
I 100% agree with jbdean. The graphic, though nice and interesting, was littered with grammatical errors. Unacceptable. This diminishes crowdSpring’s professionalism in my eyes.
I noticed the same thing. Typos and grammatical errors galore. Glad I searched for “typos” on this page before just posting a new comment about it.
I wonder what effect typos and poor grammar have on purchases. I think I can guess.
Great infographic! This confirms some things that came somewhat intuitively to me as a designer.
All very interesting.
Excellent infographic. It’s always great to see some new numbers with this information. Very much appreciated!
What is the source of “Percentage online shoppers did not purchase …. too slow: 64%”?
Stunning infography, well done!
Thanks so much for all the helpful information.
For me Blue always looked professional.
Oh! my god… What a info. Great infographic.
Few thing we should keep in mind before choosing color 1)Country 2)What kind of audience you are targeting including age and last but least 3) Age of your audience.
Thank you once again for sharing great info.
Good stuff Neil… even though it is a bit restricted to North American preferences and psychology. Think it will be a nice idea to add an infographic piece on the select few colours that symbolises positivity and negativity across the globe. I suppose Blue is one colour that is considered good across countries and cultures. Let us take another colour – White … It symbolises ‘Purity’ in India but ‘Mourning’ in China. Love to see someone doing an infographics around each colour and what it means across the globe. I know it is an ‘easy ask’ but a big task!
Really interesting, but was is the source and sample size of this data? Robust…?
Great topic. I think that colors can psychologically influence people to act a certain way. In fact, I heard somewhere that this is the reason why some burger joints use different colored wrappers that will affect the appetite of the buyer, which leads to the idea that color choices can actually affect one’s buying attitude.
Fantastic article – will share
Interesting but would really like to see the source research material. There are too many unqualified percentages. For example, the 85% primary reason to buy a product may not be colour, branding may play a far greater role. You also state that green is the easiest colour to process but it’s also one of the worst converting colours. Still a pretty good report though.
I had read about colors associated with sales somewhere last year and decided to revamp my site using turquoise. A better layout was also incorporated so hard to say which element had more affect but the feedback and purchases of the WP theme i used for astounded me, as did the BIG increase in purchases.
Any idea on the methodology used to gather this data? It can make a huge difference.
For example I would doubt “percentage of shoppers that did not return because of overall aesthetics” at 52% if it were based on simply asking customers directly. I think it’s a much more subtle and subconscious effect that customers don’t even realize most of the time. So if that data were discerned in other, less direct ways, I would give it more value.
I get what you mean however the research was based on various factors, not just asking customers directly. I agree that the subconscious factor really plays a large role.
It would be also interesting to see different meanings of colours in countries. I have noticed at linkedin that many members from India has photos on with red background, it is not popular in other countries.
Thank you for sharing! Perfect infographics
hmmm, that’s interesting. I wonder if that’s done deliberately or not.
i’m doing a science project and this really helping
I think there is definitely a connection with color and shopping, at least for me. There is a certain mood/feeling that inwardly I gravitate towards. I love color and very rarely have white. To me it is the absence of color. Recently, a pizza place opened in our community. I thought I am not attracted to it nor would I probably patronize the store. It’s Peace of Pizza. The colors are tye-dyed with a peace sign. I feel like I should come out of there high or the people are not clean but earthy. After thinking these thoughts, my friend went there and told me how much she loved it. So, naturally curiosity got me and I went there and bought pizza slices. And, guess what it is very clean, very nice and the pizzas are all gourmet with like basil, mozzarella and tomatoes or a Buffalo chicken pizza. So there you have it.
That’s a great example of looks being deceiving. If it hadn’t been for that referral, you probably wouldn’t have gone there and experienced amazing pizza. That just comes to show you that the place is giving the wrong message by the way they look…
This is pretty good information although a bit simplistic
especially about what colors attract what kind of shopper.
Truth be told very few products use real primary colors.
Even though red is a primary color the myriad differences in reds make huge differences. A perfect example is Target’s red and KMart’s red. Starting out as close competitors Target became conscious of the power of color early- long before the hot designers phase. The red of Target is sophisticated, the red of KMart is budget. So you can see it is extremely difficult to make these broad pronouncement abouts color. It is still always in the nuance. How many people have said, “Well we used red and it didn’t give us the results we wanted.” As Color Marketing Group, the international trackers of colors trends says, “Color Sells- and the right color sells better.” How true, how true.
James Martin-The Color People
Interesting James… It’s always amazes me how something you wouldn’t image making a big a difference, does. Do you have any other examples like the kmart/target color?
As an author of seven books on color, color trainer, speaker and forecaster I am always interested in reliable color info. But please remember that one specific example of each hue isn’t a complete picture– too general. For example, an electric blue gives a very different perception that a calm light blue. It would best to show nuances when discussing effects.
Leatrice Eiseman, Director Eiseman Center for Color Information and Training
Executive Director, Pantone Color Institute
http://www.colorexpert.com
eisemancolorblog.com
Sounds like you’ve had a ton of experience with color ;) Any examples you mind sharing with us?
it’s still not clear which one we should chose for a shopping cart.
i guess you have to define the target audience first.
what about the green button of your own blog “add comment” ;) obviously works on me ;)
You would have to try it on your site own site to figure out which color/button is converting best. It really does vary for each site.
There is a typo. It says “effects” when it should say “affects” next to the little green shopping cart.
Thank you for sharing…I’ve always been fascinated by the psychology of color and how it impacts buying trends.
Other than the couple of typo’s love this infographic! Wish we had this data for early website development circa 1997 – 2004!
White and grey are missing (so no one buys Apple/Mac?)
These boots is not merely really comfy and light, typical appeal. In fact, the origin of UGG snow
Wow, interesting ideas and suggestions. I have a lot to do to get my website visually user friendly.
That’s a nice post about the psychology of colors. Psychology is an important marketing tool – although I never imagined colors being that powerful.
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Just can’t get how those colors affect me – I can’t choose Iphone: black or white.
wow.
thats very impressive.
im to much inspired of this effort.
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Thanks for the post, really interesting… appreciate all your efforts. Never thought that colors can have such an impact on shopping.
Nice Tip for us beginners in online market. This will always remind us to make our item icon to be colorful and attractive to our buyers eye. I really appreciate the effort on posting this really helpful tips. Looking forward on hearing more interesting post that I can learn from. Lesson learned. :)
Interesting facts, I kinda knew orange colour fits perfect when it coms to online sales.
Nice infographic, I’m impressed. Nice to see the various color schemes to be used depending on the situation (like a clearance) and/or the market (type of buyers and products).
Normally I do not read article on blogs, however I would like to say that this write-up very compelled me to check out and do it!
the shades are beautiful
So true! A lot of people know how appealing colors are. Its one of the basis why certain consumers buy something. Very nice post. Will you be posting nice posts like this? please let me know thanks. :D
This image is huge, it was long to display it here :-) But it’s very useful infos. Thank you for the job.
but in Africa some colors represent the political parties , is it true
ive been wanting to know this as a young graphic designer
Really interesting. Even if orange is more associated with a call to action, we’d want to try green as a “Buy Now” button in the shopping cart, maybe soothing the anxiety of spending money. What do you think?
Retail is detail.
Thank you so much. This is useful information.
how does red effect decision making
Interesting facts, I kinda knew orange colour fits perfect when it coms to online sales.
I got more than I bargained for with this post. Interesting topic. Will follow.
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On mobile safari iPhone, clicking on the info graphic takes me to the page I am already viewing instead of a larger or zoomable version. minor whine complete.
This is great. I really wish you had cited your resources, though. I am doing a research paper on the effects of colors on society, and this is perfect-except that your sources aren’t cited so even though this is exactly what i’m looking for, I can’t use it.
This is really attention-grabbing, You are a very professional blogger. I have joined your rss feed and look ahead to in the hunt for extra of your wonderful post. Also, I’ve shared your web site in my social networks
Now everyone will know why I love Orange ;D
I have always thought that colors affect the way people shop but never did any research on it untill now. This has confirmed a lot for me. I am going to take this into consideration for my next website project for sure.
Thanks
It is good to see you verbalise from the heart and your clarity on this important subject can be easily observed.It is really great information.
For me when I see red on its own it distracts me from what I want to look at, pinks blues, white green those are the colours for me. Even when looking at a graphic
really excellent factors right here, just thanks
Very interesting and insightful. Though I think the click through rate and buying decision are not solely dependent on just color of button but rather on overall look and feel of the website. With emerging social trends and technological advancement, buyers are really smarter than sellers and a site’s overall online trust and brand reputation ultimately matter in influencing the buying decision of prospects. I have seen an almost color-less (But clean & minimalistic) website of 90′s look and feel having huge online sales. It’s all about brand reputation at the end of the day. For start-ups, these factors might matter to establish their brand identity, but for already established brands, it hardly matters. When things go viral, people buy… no matter what the designs or colors are……..
Colors always effect clients attention. For example, most women like pink colors. On the other hands, young people like black colors and aged people choose white colors. So when you design a product, you must utilize color properly so that it can draw attention of customer of all ages.
This really seems to be the case with my website. I changed the whole look and colors years ago and made it bigger but never have gotten the sales like before I changed colors. In fact I thought my new look was more professional but I guess the old look was better at conversions.
Wow real informative post ,thanks for sharing
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Very informative and helpful to website designers and owners. Thanks.
Great.
The web design has a fairly recent history, it can be linked to other areas such as graphic design. However web design is also seen as a technological standpoint. It has become a large part of people’s everyday lives. It is hard to imagine the Internet without animated graphics, different styles of typography, background and music. Thanks.
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