Visual Optimization of Quantity Display in Online Retailing
Prof. Echo Wen Wan
Professor in Marketing,
HKU Business School
Date: 7 April 2025 (Monday)
Time: 10:30 to 12:00
Venue: E22-G015
Host: Prof. Elaine Li YAN, Associate Professor in Marketing
Abstract
Online retailing platforms are employing various practices to present quantities of grocery items on webpages where consumers make quantity-based purchase decisions. The current research identifies an approach based on visual aids—supplementing a specific quantity with a corresponding number of visual icons—to promote product packs containing more individual units. One field experiment and thirteen preregistered, incentive-compatible experiments demonstrate that our proposed approach based on visual aids shifts consumers’ preferences from smaller-quantity packs toward larger-quantity packs, compared to the numerical presentation of quantities. This effect is robust and occurs because visual aids of quantity presentation increase the perceived quantitative difference between two packs with their cost difference being held constant, consequently enhancing the relative attractiveness of larger-quantity packs over smaller-quantity packs. We further design a simpler and more cost-effective visual aid approach to achieve the same purpose of promoting larger-quantity packs and offer precautions about what layouts should be avoided when designing visual aids of quantity presentation. This research extends the literature by demonstrating that visual aids can even influence consumers’ perceptions of easy-to-assess quantities and generates novel managerial insights into the optimization of quantity presentation practice in online retailing.
Speaker
Prof. Echo Wen Wan is Professor in Marketing at HKU Business School. Prof. Wan’s research is in the areas of anthropomorphism marketing, health marketing, and smart technology and consumer behavior. Prof. Wan has published at premier academic journals such as Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing. She receives the honor as the Marketing Science Institute Scholar in 2020 and the Marketing Science Institute Young Scholar in 2013. Prof. Wan served as Associate Editor for Journal of Consumer Research, and is the Editorial Board member for Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Consumer Psychology. She served as the Co-Chair for Association for Consumer Research, Asia-Pacific Conference in 2015.
All are welcome!
