Image, brand and price info: do they always matter the same?

Abstract

We study attention processes to brand, price and visual information about products in online retailing websites, simultaneously considering the effects of consumers’ goals, purchase category and consumers’ statements. We use an intra-subject experimental design, simulated web stores and a combination of observational eye-tracking data and declarative measures. Image information about the product is the more important stimulus, regardless of the task at hand or the store involved. The roles of brand and price information are dependent on the product category and the purchase task involved. Declarative measures of relative brand importance are found to be positively related with its observed importance.