Leveraging the Power of Color in E-Commerce

By: LiquidPixels | December 14, 2021 | 6 Min Read

Color has an emotional impact.

In fact, consumers place visual appearance and color over all other factors while shopping. According to psychological research, 85 percent of shoppers said color is their primary reason for why they purchase a certain project.

E-Commerce, which relies heavily on the needs and whims of consumers, can utilize the power of color to influence buying decisions. Time and time again, enticing visuals have proven successful in attracting buyers to companies that end up becoming their go-to brands.

Here are more reasons why (and how) you should leverage the power of color in your e-commerce website and marketing.

The Power of Color (in Numbers)

The right use of colors in marketing can positively impact your sales. According to Kissmetrics:

• Ninety-three percent of shoppers choose visual appearance as the main factor they consider when shopping.
• Eighty-five percent of shoppers said color is their primary reason for why they purchase a certain project.
• Colors used in marketing increases brand recognition by 80 percent, and this is directly tied to consumer confidence.

Coca-Cola® is one of the best examples of brand recognition by color and aesthetics alone.

What Colors Represent

For shoppers, especially across North America, colors in marketing and branding are associated with various qualities and product values:

Red

Considered a warning color, red is the perfect color to be used in traffic signs. Red suggests a strong sense of urgency and energy, and it achieves the greatest physical response. Studies have discovered that when people are exposed to red, their pulse often quickens. For e-commerce and marketing, this is particularly effective to trigger impulse purchases. The color red is also suitable for special offers as it catches attention quickly. In the food industry, it is leveraged to stimulate the customer’s appetite as the color red is innately understood as ripened fruit.

Examples: Target, KFC, Coca-Cola

Blue

Blue triggers a strengthening yet calming effect on people. In advertising, this color is a signal of trust and security. Brands under the medicinal and pharmaceutical industry can be seen using blue, as well as brands within the finance industry.

Examples: Unilever, Oral-B, IBM, PayPal

Green

This verdant hue is often associated with nature, relaxation, and hope. Organic, wellness, and health products typically incorporate the color green into their labels and branding to represent those associations. In contrast to red, its color wheel opposite, green is seen as a calming color.

Examples: Animal Planet, Whole Foods, Spotify

Yellow

Yellow is often used as an expression of youthfulness and optimism. McDonald’s, which has always been a happy place for children, has chosen this color for their brand for the same reason.

Examples: McDonald's, Best Buy, Ferrari

Orange

Orange is created through a blending of red and yellow; this color represents the energy of red and the optimism of yellow in one vibrant hue. It is a symbol of friendliness, cheerfulness, and self-confidence. It is also regarded as an activating color, much like red and yellow.

Examples: MasterCard, Fanta, Amazon

Pink

A tint of red, pink is typically associated with love and romance. It is also associated with compassion, kindness, nurturance, and softness.

Examples: Johnson & Johnson, Mattel's Barbie, Avon

Did you know?
Since the color has a calming effect, pink has been widely used in places that need calming atmospheres, like prisons and mental rehabilitation institutes. Unfortunately, studies have shown that the effect only occurs during the initial exposure. In prisons, inmates often become even more agitated once they become accustomed to the color.

Black/White/Grey

These shades and tints are often considered “neutral colors” for brands. In color psychology, these shades represent a marriage of modernity and elegance, of functionality and seriousness. Often, we see these colors being favored by tech companies and luxury products. Apple is a key example.

Examples: Apple, Louis Vuitton, Wikipedia

However, there are also studies that challenge the theory of associating colors to specific brand qualities, much less specific feelings. Research reveals that many factors influence an individual’s perception of how colors affect them, like context, cultural differences, experiences, personal preferences, and upbringing.

So, while these generalizations may guide brands in making an informed decision, it is always better to know who your customers are, what they want, and which colors make them feel a certain way.

Colors in Print and Fashion

In both the web-to-print world and the fashion industry, representing colors used in online marketing is imperative.

CMYK vs Pantone®

CMYK, which stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and BlacK, is a color model often used by industrial color offset presses, high-end color laser printers, and your home printer. It is best utilized for printing photos or other multicolored graphics.

Pantone printing, on the other hand, is color-specific and takes highly precise mixes of ink to create an exact color. It’s also referred to as “spot color” and utilizes a predetermined set of colors found in a “swatchbook” to match a certain color used in the design process.

Two of the main differences between these color systems are accuracy and cost. Pantone is more accurate and consistent in producing and recreating colors in digital design ideas. In cost, CMYK is cheaper and easier to produce, especially for small print jobs.

RGB vs CMYK

The CMYK color model is subtractive, in that it uses white as the natural print background color and black as the combined result of colored inks. In contrast, RGB (which stands for Red, Green, and Blue) is an additive color model. It uses white as a combination of all primary colors and black as the absence of light.

RGB is often used in digital work to be displayed on a medium that transmits light, such as computer and phone screens. This color model is also ideal for digital media designs because these mediums emit color as either red, green, or blue light.

It is important to understand the fundamental difference between these color models. Using the wrong color model can lead to significant differences between your print marketing materials and your digital mock-up.

Printing a file in RGB will most likely result in a printed material with all the wrong colors. Likewise, printing a sports team jersey in CMYK when there is a matching Pantone color will dull the colors on the fabric. Fixing such issues would be costly and time-consuming.

Colorization and Dynamic Imaging

Now that we’ve established the power of color and how important colorization is for e-commerce, companies need to learn how they can apply these learnings to their products, specifically through dynamic imaging.

With dynamic imaging, companies do not need to take hundreds of photos to show as references on their website. Instead, they can use a single master image to instantly and accurately create images in any color, fabric, or material.

Dynamic imaging also enables next-level customization that even customers find easy to use. Let your customers colorize and personalize their purchases:

Design mix-and-match shirts, tops, pants, skirts, other apparel.

Create a stunning combination of colors for jewelry pieces.

Decorate your house with furniture that resonates with your color preferences.

Promote brand recognition with products that highlight your company colors.

Leverage the Power of Color with LiquiFire OS

Experiment with the power of color with the help of LiquiFire® OS Blaze™ and its dynamic imaging capabilities.

LiquiFire OS Blaze is the premier dynamic imaging suite for the marketing connoisseur. It combines the powerful automation tools of automatic resize, format, and compression with the robust advanced imaging features of product colorization, personalization, and advanced typography.

LiquiFire OS Blaze uses a single master image to instantly create images in any color, as predetermined by the e-commerce website.

By referencing one master file, the rendered image will maintain product consistency and corporate brand integrity, while also giving your customers the ability to make items unique. It enables:

• Support for CMYK, RGB, and Pantone
• On demand colorization
• No manual intervention

LiquiFire OS empowers you with a dynamic use of colors in marketing your products, while also being able to scale to future needs in the process.

We can help guide you through our solutions to see if we’re a good fit for your business needs.