How to Design Habit-Forming Shopping Experiences: A Developer‘s Perspective
As a full-stack developer and professional coder, I‘ve had the opportunity to work on a wide range of e-commerce projects over the years. And in that time, I‘ve seen firsthand how the most successful shopping apps and websites are the ones that don‘t just offer a convenient way to browse and buy, but actually reshape users‘ everyday behaviors and routines.
In other words, they‘ve cracked the code on designing habit-forming experiences that keep customers coming back day after day, week after week. And while the psychology behind this kind of behavioral design can seem like magic, the technical building blocks are surprisingly straightforward.
In this article, I‘ll share some of the key principles and patterns I‘ve learned for creating e-commerce experiences that are not only sticky, but meaningful and valuable to users. We‘ll dive into the nuts and bolts of architecting these systems at scale, look at some real-world examples, and explore the ethical considerations that come with the power to shape people‘s habits.
The Opportunity: E-Commerce Is Eating the World
But first, let‘s set the stage with some context on just how massive and fast-moving the e-commerce landscape has become. According to eMarketer, global e-commerce sales are projected to reach nearly $5 trillion in 2021, making up a full 17.5% of total retail sales. And that share is only expected to grow in the coming years as more and more shoppers shift their spending online and on mobile.
| Year | Retail E-commerce Sales (trillions) | % of Total Retail Sales |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | $3.354 | 14.1% |
| 2020 | $4.280 | 18.0% |
| 2021 | $4.921 | 19.5% |
| 2022 | $5.545 | 21.1% |
| 2023 | $6.169 | 22.7% |
Source: eMarketer, May 2021
Within that overall e-commerce pie, mobile commerce (or m-commerce) is the fastest growing slice. In 2021, m-commerce sales are expected to make up over 70% of total e-commerce sales, up from just 52.4% in 2016. This explosive growth in mobile shopping is being driven by a combination of factors, from the increasing adoption of smartphones globally to the rise of mobile-first markets like China and India to the continuous improvements in mobile UX and functionality.
All of this adds up to a clear imperative for retailers and brands: if you want to stay relevant and competitive in the years ahead, you need to have a killer mobile shopping experience. But with thousands of shopping apps out there vying for attention, it‘s not enough to just have a mobile presence – you need to build an app that users will want to engage with regularly and make an indispensable part of their lives.
The Hook Model: A Framework for Habit-Forming Design
So what separates the shopping apps that manage to become daily habits from the ones that get used once and forgotten? While there‘s no magic formula, many of the most successful examples make use of what Nir Eyal calls the "Hook Model" in his book Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products.
The Hook Model breaks down the process of habit formation into four key phases: trigger, action, reward, and investment. By carefully designing each of these stages and linking them together into a self-reinforcing loop, product creators can dramatically increase the likelihood that users will keep coming back on their own, without the need for expensive marketing or spammy notifications.
Source: Nir Eyal, "Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products"
Let‘s look at how this model can be applied to the world of online shopping:
1. Trigger
The trigger is the cue or stimulus that kicks off the habit loop and prompts the user to take action. In e-commerce, triggers can take many different forms, both external and internal.
External triggers are things like push notifications, emails, SMS messages, or social media posts that directly prompt the user to open the app or visit the website. The key is to make these outreach efforts as timely, relevant, and valuable as possible rather than generic or spammy. Some tactics that can help:
- Personalizing the content and timing of notifications based on the user‘s past viewing and purchase history
- Highlighting items that are on sale, low in stock, or otherwise time-sensitive
- Offering exclusive discounts or early access to new products for a limited window
- Sending reminders to replenish frequently purchased items at the right cadence
- Notifying users of price drops or back-in-stock alerts for items they‘ve wishlisted
Internal triggers, on the other hand, are the associations and emotions that users start to form around the shopping experience itself. These are cues that exist within the user‘s own mind and environment that lead them to spontaneously think of the app and feel compelled to open it. Some common examples:
- FOMO (fear of missing out) triggered by social proof like trending items or reviews
- Boredom or idle time that prompts mindless browsing as a distraction
- Anticipation of a gamified reward or level-up that‘s close to being earned
- Desire to complete a collection or "set" of related items over time
- Craving for a novel or serendipitous discovery that might pop up in the feed
To start building these internal triggers, look for ways to connect your app to the existing routines, emotions, and pain points your target users experience throughout their day. The goal is to both be top of mind at the right moment and offer a meaningful solution to a real need or desire.
2. Action
The second step in the Hook Model is to make it as quick and easy as possible for users to take the intended action and get the reward they‘re craving. In shopping terms, this means removing as much friction as possible from the browse-to-buy flow so users can go from trigger to purchase in just a few taps.
As a developer, this is where a lot of the technical heavy lifting comes into play. At a high level, some of the key considerations include:
-
Mobile-optimized design: With the majority of e-commerce traffic and sales now coming from mobile devices, it‘s essential to design your shopping UX for small screens and touch interfaces first. That means streamlined navigation, large tap targets, mobile-friendly forms, and a focus on speed and simplicity throughout.
-
Headless architecture: To enable the kind of rapid experimentation and personalization that habit-forming experiences require, it‘s helpful to decouple your front-end UX from your back-end systems and leverage a headless e-commerce platform. This allows you to make changes to the UI and add new features without having to update the underlying infrastructure, and vice versa.
-
APIs and SDKs: In addition to connecting to your own back-end via APIs, consider leveraging third-party services and pre-built components to add advanced functionality like visual search, shoppable videos, AR try-on, and more. Look for vendors that offer robust SDKs and documentation to make integration as seamless as possible.
-
Personalization and relevance: Use data on user demographics, behaviors, and preferences to surface the most relevant products and offers in real-time. This can involve a combination of collaborative filtering (i.e. "customers who bought X also bought Y"), content-based filtering (matching products to user profiles), and hybrid approaches that blend the two.
-
Frictionless checkout: Once a user has found an item they want to buy, it‘s critical to make the actual purchase process as smooth and painless as possible. Enable one-click or one-tap buying with saved payment and shipping info, offer a range of payment options (including digital wallets and BNPL services), and use autofill and data validation to minimize form errors.
-
Progressive enhancement: While native mobile apps still tend to convert at higher rates than web-based experiences, it‘s important to meet users where they are and support a range of contexts. Building your shop as a progressive web app (PWA) allows you to offer an app-like experience right in the mobile browser, complete with offline functionality, push notifications, and home screen installation.
3. Variable Reward
The third component of the Hook Model is the reward – the benefit or value that the user receives as a result of taking the intended action. But not all rewards are created equal when it comes to driving long-term engagement and habit formation.
According to the model, the most effective rewards are variable – meaning they offer an element of surprise, delight, or uncertainty rather than being predictable or guaranteed. This variability is what activates the same dopamine-driven pathways in the brain that make activities like gambling or social media so compelling.
In the context of shopping, there are a few key types of variable rewards to consider:
-
Monetary rewards: These are things like discounts, cashback, points, or other financial incentives that users can earn by making purchases or taking certain actions. The key is to mix up the size, timing, and triggers for these rewards so there‘s always an element of excitement and anticipation. Think flash sales, mystery coupons, tiered loyalty programs, or seasonal challenges.
-
Social rewards: These are the feelings of validation, belonging, and status that users get from being part of a community or achieving a certain level of visibility. In e-commerce, this can take the form of user profiles and leaderboards, shoppable user-generated content, or exclusive access to products or experiences based on a user‘s rank or history.
-
Informational rewards: These are the bits of knowledge, insight, or novelty that users discover through the shopping process. Think personalized recommendations, curated collections, or contextual product pairings that help users find new items or combinations they might not have considered before. The goal is to make the shopping experience feel like a treasure hunt or learning journey rather than a simple transaction.
4. Investment
The final piece of the Hook puzzle is the investment – the small bit of work that users put into the product that increases its value over time. These investments create a sense of ownership and commitment that makes it harder for users to abandon the app for a competitor.
In shopping, investments can take a few different forms:
-
Data and preferences: Every time a user saves an item to a wishlist, leaves a review, or answers an onboarding quiz, they‘re giving you valuable data that you can use to personalize their experience and make the product more relevant to their needs. Make it easy and rewarding for users to input this information, but also be transparent about how you‘re using it and give them control over their privacy settings.
-
Social connections: If users are able to connect with friends, follow brands or influencers, or join interest-based communities within your app, they‘re more likely to see it as a destination for entertainment and connection rather than just a place to shop. Look for ways to make social interaction a natural part of the discovery and buying process, whether that‘s through shared wishlists, group gifting, or user-generated collections.
-
User-generated content: From photos and videos to reviews and Q&As, any content that users contribute to your app helps to make it feel more vibrant, trustworthy, and valuable to other users. Encourage these contributions by prominently displaying user content throughout the experience, offering incentives or recognition for top contributors, and making it easy for users to share their own purchases and finds with their networks.
Putting It All Together: A Habit-Forming E-Commerce Tech Stack
So what does it actually take to build and maintain an e-commerce experience that can hook users for the long haul? While the specifics will vary depending on your business model and target audience, there are a few key technical considerations to keep in mind:
-
Start with a robust and flexible e-commerce platform that can scale with your business and support the kinds of personalization and experimentation that habit-forming experiences require. Some popular options include Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, and Commerce Cloud.
-
Use a headless architecture to decouple your front-end UX from your back-end systems and enable faster iteration and optimization. This can involve using a modern web framework like React or Angular for your PWA, and connecting to your e-commerce platform and other services via APIs.
-
Implement a customer data platform (CDP) to unify and activate user data from across touchpoints and systems. This will allow you to build rich user profiles and segments that can power personalized recommendations, targeted offers, and more.
-
Experiment with different UI patterns and design elements that can enhance the sense of serendipity, scarcity, and social proof in your experience. Some ideas: product badging, countdown timers, "peeking" at other users‘ carts, or gamified challenges and rewards.
-
Use machine learning and predictive modeling to surface the most relevant products and offers to each user in real-time. This can involve training models on user behavior data, product attributes, and contextual signals to generate dynamic recommendations and search results.
-
Leverage emerging technologies like AR, VR, and voice interfaces to create more immersive and convenient shopping experiences. For example, you could use AR to allow users to virtually try on products or see how they would look in their space, or enable voice-based product search and purchasing through a smart speaker integration.
-
Build trust and transparency into every aspect of the user experience, from clear pricing and shipping information to easy returns and responsive customer service. Use features like product reviews, user-generated photos, and expert guides to help users feel confident in their purchases.
-
Monitor and optimize key metrics around user engagement, retention, and lifetime value, but don‘t lose sight of the bigger picture of user well-being and long-term brand health. Use user research and feedback to continuously improve the experience and address any pain points or concerns.
Of course, this is just a high-level overview of what goes into building a habit-forming e-commerce experience. The reality is that it takes a lot of ongoing experimentation, iteration, and cross-functional collaboration to get it right, and what works for one brand or audience may not work for another.
The Ethics of Habit-Forming Design
As with any technology that has the power to shape human behavior, it‘s important to consider the ethical implications of building habit-forming experiences. While there‘s nothing inherently wrong with creating products that people love and want to use regularly, there‘s a fine line between healthy habits and harmful addictions.
As a developer, it‘s our responsibility to build products that are not only effective but also ethical and aligned with users‘ best interests. That means being transparent about how we‘re using data, giving users control over their privacy and preferences, and designing experiences that enhance rather than exploit people‘s natural behaviors and emotions.
It also means being mindful of the potential unintended consequences of our design choices, and taking steps to mitigate any risks or negative impacts. For example, if we‘re using scarcity tactics or social proof to drive purchases, we need to make sure we‘re not encouraging impulsive or irrational spending that could put users in financial jeopardy.
Ultimately, the goal of habit-forming design should be to create experiences that are not only sticky but also meaningful and valuable to users in the long run. By aligning our products with users‘ real needs and desires, and building trust and transparency into every interaction, we can create shopping habits that are not only good for business but also good for people and society as a whole.
Conclusion
Building habit-forming e-commerce experiences is both an art and a science, and it requires a deep understanding of human psychology as well as the latest tools and technologies. By leveraging frameworks like the Hook Model and investing in a flexible, data-driven tech stack, developers and designers can create shopping apps and websites that become an indispensable part of users‘ daily lives.
But with that power comes great responsibility, and it‘s up to us as creators to wield it wisely and ethically. By focusing on long-term value over short-term gains, and putting users‘ needs and well-being at the center of everything we do, we can build e-commerce experiences that not only drive business results but also make a positive impact on people‘s lives.
As the world of online shopping continues to evolve and grow, it‘s an exciting time to be a developer in this space. By staying curious, experimenting with new technologies and approaches, and always keeping the user at the forefront, we have the opportunity to shape the future of commerce and create experiences that truly hook people for life.