Appeals of product pictures on the product detail page - the effect of mental imagery

Abstract

Online shoppers are not able to touch and feel products when perusing online stores. Product images on the product detail pages are the main sources of information that users rely on to construct their interactions with a product. This study investigates how the appeal type of product images (attribute-based vs. benefit-based) influences shoppers’ attitudes and purchase intention toward a product as well as the mediation of this process by the vividness and elaboration of mental imagery. The results shows that appeals of product images affect shoppers’ attitude via vivid and elaborated imagery, but purchase intention is impacted by elaborated imagery only. For shoppers, the effect of attribute-based appeals on imagery elaboration is significantly more prominent for well-known brands than for less-known brands. The implication for product detail page design is to emphasize product attributes over benefits for well-known brands while the reverse is true for less-known brands.