Place a Focal Product in the Left Side of Bundles

You often see bundles of products in ecommerce.

Turns out, you prefer bundles in which the best product is toward the left (Mittelman & Andrade, 2017).

You can blame reading directionality: If you read from left to right, you evaluate other stimuli in this pattern.

But why does it influence purchases?

You evaluate bundles by imagining yourself consuming each item. If you read from left to right, you start imagining the leftmost item. Hmm, not appealing? You feel lackluster emotions, discouraging you from evaluating the subsequent items.

Takeaways:

• Distinguish the Focal Item. Position isn't everything. Customers simply need to look at the best product first. Make it bigger. Make it brighter. Do something.
• Stronger With Variety Bundles. Maybe you sell different versions of a product — size, flavor, color, etc. The effect is most prominent in this scenario. Without a default product, customers place more weight on the first item they evaluate.
• Strongest With 2 Items. Researchers analyzed bundles of 2 items. But with 3+ items, people might follow the central fixation bias (i.e., viewing middle options first). I suspect the position effect is weaker, but we need research to validate.