Hershey knows how to get you to buy chocolate on a whim — if you’re shopping at a store. But as people shift to online shopping, Hershey is trying to find new ways to tempt customers with sweets. On store shelves and in checkout aisles, the company has figured out where a candy bar will catch your eye. Now Hershey is trying to determine the digital equivalent and make sure impulse buying doesn’t fade away. “Impulse is still really important,” Doug Straton, Hershey’s chief digital commerce officer, told reporters on a recent conference call. But online, “you cannot think about impulse purchase in the same way you do in a physical world. It’s a very different thing.” One strategy is to pay special attention to online checkouts. Straton explained that customers may see a recommendation for a Hershey product after they’ve already placed their order with a retailer like Amazon. Here’s how it works: After you check out, you see a countdown clock that lets you add a Hershey product to your basket within the given time. That may recreate the pressure you feel when deciding whether to pick up a chocolate bar as the line moves you closer to checkout. Another feature invites shoppers to “just add Hershey’s” to reach a minimum that earns them free shipping. Ravi Dhar, director of the Center for Customer Insights at the Yale School of Management, said that encouraging shoppers to reach a spending minimum with an indulgent treat is an effective way to sell candy. “People are willing to buy chocolates and things like that if it means free shipping,” Dhar said. They’re less willing to add a healthy item, like broccoli, he said. A third strategy recommends Hershey products that round out a recipe: If you add eggs, butter and flour to your cart, you may see a recommendation for chocolate chips so you can bake cookies at home. Dhar said shoppers generally show less self-control as they near checkout. “If you suddenly get an offer toward the beginning, you’ll turn it down,” he said. By the end, you may feel like you “deserve a treat.” Early indications suggest the strategy is working: In the three months ending in July the company’s e-commerce sales surged more than 30% compared with the previous quarter. The digital divide Dan Ariely, a psychology and behavioral economics professor at Duke University, warned against trying to use strategies online that work in brick-and-mortar stores. “Standard physical shopping has emotions that cannot be replicated online,” Ariely said. The “online environment plays against the regular impulse buying,” he said, because traditional impulse purchases are driven by a reaction to a physical object you encounter unintentionally. Plus, in-person impulse purchases result in immediate gratification. Online shoppers know that they’ll have to wait to get their candy. “It loses the tempting intensity,” said Klaus Wertenbroch, a marketing professor at the graduate business school INSEAD. If shoppers do decide to make the purchase, however, they’ll still feel that temptation at home. That could work out in Hershey’s favor, the company said. Hershey (HSY) is betting that people may order a pack instead of a single candy bar online. Straton said that in brick-and-mortar stores, most people make impulse purchases three to four times a year. “If we can hit them even one time per year, in a digital sense, and sell them 24 or 30 or 36, we’re in a much better place,” he said. “And in fact, if we can get on the [shopping] list and then remind people that these things are not any longer in their pantry, then we can get the repeat purchases.” Klaus noted that some shoppers may avoid buying big packages because they don’t want temptations at home. Those people may intentionally buy smaller quantities. But others may buy a pack and ration out the servings. Hershey should be mindful of these shopping behaviors when developing a strategy, he said, adding that people may even be willing to pay a premium for small package sizes that help them control their urges. Dhar said it’s not safe to assume that people will buy more because they’re shopping online. “People shop online when they want to buy more.” But “when everybody starts going online, that doesn’t mean that they’ll buy large quantities.”