Color psychology and how to use it in your online store

I’ve been browsing Quora lately which, by the way, is an amazing platform to communicate with each other. When encountering a problem, I go to different sites looking up for the answers I’m not perfectly sure about. Recently, I’ve been asked about “Which color makes the most sales?”. So I started looking for answers, and end up acknowledging that there is a whole Color Psychology stating how colors can influence branding and marketing of a product/website.

You can tell a lot about a person by their favorite color and as so about an online store. Thus, colors speak your identity & personality. This is the reason why getting the right mix of colors can mean the difference between a repeat customer and a one-time visitor.

What is Color Psychology?

Color psychology is the study of colors & its influence on human behavior. Aiming to discover how color affects our mundane decisions from ‘the product we like’ to ‘the products we buy’.

The way micro-interactions make a person remember a brand, the same goes for colors too. For instance, when you think of like (👍) button, you instantly think of Facebook. It’s hard to imagine Facebook without this little feature. Similarly, it’ll be hard to imagine Facebook of any color other than blue!

On a similar note, restaurants like McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, KFC, etc. use red in their logos to stimulate hunger. While luxury brands like Chanel, Prada, Michael Kors used black, white, silver, and gold in the logos to enhance the feeling of sophistication.

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Let’s have a brief look at these widely used colors and the effect they have on online customers:

RED

Red is associated with love, life, confidence, energy & action. This color is specially used to induce triggers, which means it captures attention.

Red is the iconic color used for brands like Coca Cola and YouTube.

Blue

Blue fetches feelings of trust, harmony, peace, and productivity. It is one of the most common colors on the internet. You should avoid using this if you have an online restaurant website. Since blue depicts some negative color meanings like coldness & depression, it is said to decrease appetite.

Other than that, technical brands like Facebook, Skype, Dell, Ford, Twitter, and WordPress use blue in their marketing. Including some healthcare niche like Oral-B.

Black

Strength, power, and dominance are the three features associated with the color black. If you are looking forward to sending your customers a confident message then black is the pick!

Being a sophistication color, brands like Nike & Chanel used black for their theme & logo in contrast with white. Noticeably, their text, graphics & even call to actions are also black.

Green

Green throws natural and organic vibes. It is often related to positivity, relaxation, safety, and harmony.

So, if you’re in the health or fitness niche, you might choose to add more green to your online store. Tropicana, Animal Planet, Spotify, Shopify, Starbucks, etc. are some of the brands associated with this color.

Yellow

It evokes feelings of happiness, positivity & optimism. It gives those summer vibes. Brands use yellow as their theme or logo color to send cheerful aura to their customers. A little touch of yellow can help your website visitors associate your store with something positive.

Big brands like Ferrari, IMDB, Nikon, UPS, NatGeo, etc. use yellow to get up vibrantly. However, it should be used in moderation because excessive use of yellow can turn customers off.