Encourage Sales

Park and Hadi evaluated links between cool temperatures and perceptions of luxury.  They determined that “physical cold can indeed increase consumers’ perceptions of a product's status signaling and luxuriousness.

Visual complexity is frequently studied, and previous research on this topic has been discussed several times in Research Design Connections.  A study conducted by Wang and team confirms the benefits of designing in moderate levels of visual complexity.  They learned that for web design “Product images with higher background complexity attract greater attention. . . . Higher background complexity distracts more attention away from the focal product. . . . Moderate background complexity can best promote product information processing. . . .

Roozen investigated how views of a store influence decisions to enter it. Her “results show that task-oriented female clothing shoppers have a higher store entry intention when the store entry is less crowded, and the window display has a creative complex composition. Recreational female clothing shoppers, on the other hand, prefer crowded complex window displays.”

Benoit and colleagues investigated how product type influences responses to retail store options. They determined that in on-the-go situations, “For goods easy to evaluate (search good; can of Coke), a [retail] format’s price level and speed are more important; For goods hard to evaluate (experience good; e.g., salad), quality, variety, atmosphere, and service are more important. . .

Hsieh and colleagues have found that the color of websites influences shopper opinions.  The researchers determined that “online consumers' reactions to online merchandise prices vary according to website background colors. Participants who view blue or low-brightness backgrounds have high patronage intentions regardless of whether prices are high or low. Participants who view red or high-brightness backgrounds are sensitive to merchandise prices and react significantly negatively to high prices. . . .