What is Colour Psychology in eCommerce and How to Use It?

Colour psychology is essential for eCommerce businesses. It influences consumer behaviour and drives sales. The colours you use on your eCommerce website or across your marketing channels can significantly impact how your customers perceive your brand and their likelihood of purchasing your product. 

Let’s explore the importance of colour psychology in eCommerce, how different colours evoke different emotions, and how you can strategically use it to enhance your online presence and increase conversions.

Colour Psychology in Marketing: An Explanation

Colour psychology is the study and application of the colour wheel. It’s implemented to influence your customers’ purchasing decisions. If done right, the colours you use on your website can significantly impact the mood of your customers. Experimenting with colour psychology mostly has a commercial intent. For instance, increasing conversion rates on an eCommerce website. Getting the right mix of colours on your eCommerce website can turn fleeting one-time visitors into repeat customers. 

Colour psychology has a significant impact on their purchasing decisions. Thus, you must use colours on your eCommerce website that reflect your brand identity and values. These colours will have a direct emotional impact on your visitors. However, the psychology of colours goes beyond their symbolic meanings for eCommerce businesses. Interpreting colour psychology in eCommerce isn’t quite simple. It’s nuanced and often complex. Your customers’ reaction to the colours you have used on your eCommerce website will depend on various factors like their cultural background, past experiences, personal preferences, etc. 

Using Colour Psychology to Benefit Your eCommerce Business

Human emotions and feelings are fleeting. Your customer’s mood will be influenced by various factors. These include what’s going on in their personal lives, the time of the day, and more. Colours are so prevalent in their daily lives that most customers are unaware of how they influence their mood and attitude towards different products. 

Colour association is one of the most important elements of your website design. It determines how your customers feel about and interact with your website. They may not consciously realise the subtle influence of the colour themes on them. Their subconscious will drive them to make a decision. The decision can either be buying your product or leaving your website without purchasing. 

The colours you use on your eCommerce website will communicate with the subconscious minds of your target audience. Colour psychology in eCommerce can help you create the right impression for your brand. The colour pattern you use on your eCommerce website will influence your customer’s attitudes, behaviour, and perspectives. Influencing their decision-making means more engagement, conversions, and profits for your eCommerce business.

How Different Colours Influence Human Emotions?

Colour theory suggests that different colours have different impacts on your customers.  Colours will impact your customer’s moods and decision-making because they fuel their emotions. Several studies prove that people often associate a particular colour with a specific mood.

Colours	The most common emotion it’s attributed to	Other common emotions it’s associated with
Red	68% of people associate it with love	Excitement, energy, urgency, love, passion, anger, violence, aggression, strength
Yellow	52% of people associate it with joy	Hope, life, optimism, cheerfulness, energy, happiness
Black	51% of people associate it with sadness	Power, sophistication, prestige, security, and other strong emotions
Pink	50% of people associate it with love	Romance, calm, femininity, gentleness, and fragility
Orange	44% of people associate it with joy	Aggression, energy, warmth, enthusiasm
White	43% of people associate it with relief	Purity, innocence, cleanliness, and efficiency
Green	39% of people associate it with contentment or satisfaction	Nature, natural energy, life, growth, environment, fertility, and wealth
Brown	36% of people associate it with disgust	Resilience, dependability, security, and safety
Blue	35% of people associate it with warmth and relief	Trust, security, responsibility, efficiency, calm, friendly, and intelligence
Purple	25% of people associate it with royalty and pleasure	Wisdom, dignity, status, creativity, luxury, and mystery

Let’s find out how different colours influence your customers’ emotions.

• Red 

You can use ‘red’ to create a sense of urgency, especially for limited-time offers. This colour is also quite effective for call-to-action (CTA) buttons like ‘buy now.’ Red is also known for increasing heart rate and stimulating appetite. Thus, it’s also suitable for promoting food-related products. 

• Yellow 

Using yellow can help you create a sense of cheerfulness. Brands mostly use this colour to highlight new arrivals and to declare promotions. It can help you develop a feeling of optimism and even encourage creativity. However, overusing it can lead to anxiety.

• Black 

It’s used mainly by luxury and fashion brands. Black helps you create a sense of premium quality and exclusivity. With black, you can evoke feelings of authority and credibility. However, you should avoid overusing black since it also represents anger and sadness.  

• Pink 

Pink is often used in products targeted towards younger people and women. You can use pink to create a calming effect on your customers. It’s primarily associated with nurturing and romance. That’s why it works pretty well for lifestyle and beauty products. 

• Orange 

This colour is quite effective for creating a feeling of excitement and even encouraging interactions. It’s also quite suitable for special offers and CTAs. You can use orange to create a sense of enthusiasm and warmth to draw attention without overly relying on the aggressiveness of red. 

• White 

This colour conveys modernity, minimalism, and simplicity. It’s often used as a background colour on most eCommerce websites. It helps other elements stand out. Using white on your eCommerce website will provide a clean and neutral backdrop, increasing the visibility of other colours and more important elements.

• Green 

Green is mainly associated with nature and sustainability. It’s often used by sustainable brands and brands offering health-related products. Green can help you evoke a feeling of peace and reliability among your customers, improving their trust in your brand. 

• Brown

Brown often conveys a sense of reliability and sustainability. It’s often used by brands offering products related to food, nature, and comfort. It’s a perfect colour for your brand if you sell furniture and other similar products. With brown, you can create an inviting and warm atmosphere suitable for organic and wholesome products. 

• Blue 

It’s ideal for brands that want to establish trust and dependability. Though it’s often used in corporate and financial sectors, you can use blue to create a sense of security and tranquillity. Blue also works quite well for services and tech products​. 

• Purple 

Lastly, purple is associated with royalty and high quality. That’s why it’s perfect for your brand if it sells premium products and services. It can help you evoke feelings of luxury and sophistication. However, you should use it in moderation to avoid perceptions of arrogance. 

Significance of Colour in Product Presentation and Marketing 

Choosing the right colour palette for your online store, it enables your customers to better connect with your brand and products. It helps you build trust, increase sales, and improve overall profits. Here are some ways colours can impact your eCommerce business.

• It helps you grab attention. Using bright, contrasting, and vibrant colours can help you grab your customer’s attention quickly. It can help you stand out in a marketplace crowded with your competitors. 
• It helps you influence the perception of your target audience. As mentioned above, different colours evoke different emotions. The right colour choice can make all the difference between whether your target audience turns into a loyal customer base.
• It helps you increase and establish your brand’s identity. Maintaining consistency in the colours you use on your website, social media channels, etc., can help you build a recognisable brand identity. 
• Colours subconsciously guide customer actions and behaviour. When used strategically, the right colours can guide your customers to take desired actions, such as adding items to their shopping cart or even completing the purchase. That’s why contrasting colours are used for CTAs to stand out. 

How to Exploit Colour Psychology to Influence Customers?

When choosing a colour scheme for your eCommerce website, you must think beyond picking a colour that looks pretty and attractive. You must understand how these colours subconsciously impact your customers’ buying behaviour. Let’s find out how.

1. Choose the right colours for your eCommerce brand

Though most colours are associated with different emotions, each can evoke different emotions in different individuals. When choosing colours for your eCommerce website, ensure that they positively impact your customer’s actions. By strategically using the right colours, you can offer your customers a more engaging and interactive shopping experience. 

2.  Use the right colours to guide your customer’s actions

You should use the right colours for CTAs, navigation, and highlighting products on your website. You can use contrasting colours for these elements to make them stand out from other website elements and attract your customer’s attention. 

3. Enhance customer experience with colour psychology

The colour scheme you use on your eCommerce website can help you enhance your customer’s experience. It can help you maintain consistency, ensure readability, and evoke desired actions. 

4. Test and optimise your approach to implementing a colour theme

Lastly, you can experiment with different colour patterns and themes to see which works best for your brand and customers. Based on your analysis, you can tweak your colour schemes accordingly.

Results of a Perfectly Implemented Colour Psychology in Marketing

Here are the key outcomes of perfectly implementing colour psychology in eCommerce marketing. 

1. You can increase conversion rates by carefully picking colours for CTA buttons that make them stand out. 

2. More conversions mean more sales, revenue, and profits for your eCommerce business. You can see a substantial increase in sales of your products when you effectively influence your customer’s buying decisions and offer an overall seamless shopping experience. 

3. Most people often remember brands by their logos and colours. Using your brand colours consistently can help you create a memorable brand identity. When you have made your brand easily recognisable, customers are more likely to return for repeat purchases. 

4. The right colours will keep your customers engaged on your website longer. When browsing your website becomes more enjoyable, it’ll lead to better customer engagement. It’ll also help you increase the time spent on your website and reduce bounce rates.

5. Your customers will remember the positive emotions your brand evoked. When customers have a good shopping experience, it improves customer satisfaction and builds trust and brand loyalty. Happy customers are more likely to return for repeat purchases and further recommend your brand to their friends and family. 

Steps to Choose the Perfect Colour For Your Brand

Let’s find out how you can choose the perfect colour for your eCommerce brand.

• Understand how the target audience will perceive your brand. It will also come in handy for your marketing strategy. 
• If you want to create and maintain a unique brand identity, you can follow trends while going with general colour preferences. The uniqueness of your brand will prevent you from getting lost in similar colours and aesthetics.
• Don’t overlook the significance of A/B testing before you finalise your brand colours. It will help you evaluate which colour schemes resonate most with your target audience. You can also assess different colour schemes regarding brand recognition and customer engagement. 

Businesses That Successfully Implemented Colour Psychology For Marketing 

Let’s look at some brands that successfully implemented colour psychology in eCommerce marketing.

Colour	Brand
Red	Coca-Cola, Netflix, Zomato
Blue	Facebook, Twitter (X)
Yellow	McDonald’s, Best Buy
Black	Puma, Adidas, Chanel, etc.
Pink	Instagram, Barbie, Victoria’s Secret
Orange	Fanta, Harley-Davidson
White	Apple, Tesla
Green	Starbucks, Spotify
Brown	Hershey’s, M&M’s
Purple	Yahoo, Cadbury

Conclusion

Understanding and using colour psychology allow eCommerce businesses to enhance their brand identity, create a memorable shopping experience and increase sales. Carefully selecting colours for your eCommerce brand that align with its message and values and resonate with your target audience can create a more engaging and compelling shopping experience for your customers. How well and strategically you use colour psychology for your eCommerce brand will be essential in capturing and retaining customer interest, driving conversions, and achieving long-term success.