The impact of product card visual design on sales: Wildberries case study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22394/1993-7601-2026-82-47-66Keywords:
рынок электронной коммерции, визуальные характеристики, анализ данных, карточка товара, tobit-модель, WildberriesAbstract
Amid the rapid expansion of the e-commerce market, the visual characteristics of product cards are becoming increasingly important for capturing customers' attention, building trust, and motivating purchases. This study addresses the limited evidence on how individual visual attributes of product cards affect sales across categories. The aim of this study is to identify design features of product cards on the Wildberries platform that affects sales, accounting for category-specific effects. We compile and analyze a dataset of 76770 product listings spanning six categories: groceries, household chemicals, clothes, shoes, household appliances, and cosmetics. Ten visual features are extracted from the main images: brightness, contrast, color palette, presence of a person, presence and amount of textual information, entropy, object area and vertical and horizontal compositional symmetry. Sales performance is modeled using tobit regression to account for censoring. The results show that salient visual drivers are category dependent. For groceries, both the presence of text on the image and color palette. In clothes, brightness and color palette matter; in shoes, image composition and its color palette are significant factors are significant. In household chemicals and appliances, text is the key factor, with a higher optimal amount for appliances than for chemicals. The cosmetics model yields the most significant coefficients, including color palette, contrast, entropy, object area, and composition.Downloads
References
Котельницкая А. А., Мирзоян А. Г. (2024). Особенности восприятия коммерческой рекламы поколениями Y и Z. Управленец, 15 (5), 103–115. DOI: 10.29141/2218-5003-2024-15-5-7.
Лапо В. Ф. (2014). Эконометрическое исследование эффективности методов стимулирования инвестиций в лесопромышленный комплекс. Прикладная эконометрика, 33 (1), 30–50.
Марценюк А. О., Мирзоян А. Г., Лавриненко П. А. (2025). Факторы потребительского выбора маркетплейса для онлайн-покупок. Управленец, 16 (3), 92–108. DOI: 10.29141/2218-5003-2025-16-3-7.
Agarwal A., Hosanagar K., Smith M. D. (2011). Location, location, location: An analysis of profitability of position in online advertising markets. Journal of Marketing Research, 48 (6), 1057–1073. DOI: 10.1509/jmr.08.0468.
Ajzen I., Fishbein M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. Englewood Cliffs.
Babin B. J., Hardesty D. M., Suter T. A. (2003). Color and shopping intentions: The intervening effect of price fairness and perceived affect. Journal of Business Research, 56 (7), 541–551. DOI: 10.1016/S0148-2963(01)00246-6.
Chernev A. (2005). Feature complementarity and assortment in choice. Journal of Consumer Research, 31 (4), 748–759. DOI: 10.1086/426608.
Chi M., Pan M., Huang R. (2021). Examining the direct and interaction effects of picture color cues and textual cues related to color on accommodation-sharing platform rental purchase. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 99, 103066. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhm.2021.103066.
Cluley R. (2018). The construction of marketing measures: The case of viewability. Marketing Theory, 18 (3), 287–305. DOI: 10.1177/1470593117753981.
Cyr D., Head M., Larios H., Pan B. (2009). Exploring human images in website design: A multi-method approach. MIS Quarterly, 33 (3), 539–566. DOI: 10.2307/20650308.
Erasmus A. C., Donoghue S., Dobbelstein T. (2014). Consumers' perception of the complexity of selected household purchase decisions. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 21 (3), 293–305. DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2014.02.008.
Feifan H. (2023). The applications of anchoring effect in the marketing field. Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communication Studies, 1 (3). DOI: 10.61173/19j5p029.
Fürst A., Pecornik N., Hoyer W. D. (2024). How product complexity affects consumer adoption of new products: The role of feature heterogeneity and interrelatedness. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 52 (2), 329–348. DOI: 10.1007/s11747-023-00933-7.
Gerpott T. J., Berends J. (2022). Competitive pricing on online markets: A literature review. Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, 21 (6), 596–610. DOI: 10.1057/s41272-022-00390-x.
Gorji M., Siami S. (2020). How sales promotion display affects customer shopping intentions in retails. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 48 (12), 1337–1355. DOI: 10.1108/IJRDM-12-2019-0407.
Hussain Z., Majeed M. U., Khan A. (2024). The impact of visual content marketing on customer purchasing behavior: Evidence from Pakistan's fashion industry. International Journal of Marketing, Communication and New Media, May 2024, 6–25. DOI: 10.54663/2182-9306.2024.SpecialIssueMD.6-25.
Im H., Ju H. W., Johnson K. K. (2021). Beyond visual clutter: The interplay among products, advertisements, and the overall webpage. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 15 (4), 804–821. DOI: 10.1108/JRIM-10-2020-0213.
Kato T. (2022). Perceived color quality: The effect of light reflection brightness of a car's exterior design on consumers' purchase intentions. International Journal of Engineering Business Management, 14, 1–10. DOI: 10.1177/18479790221126791.
Kees J. (2011). Advertising framing effects and consideration of future consequences. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 45 (1), 7–32. DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-6606.2010.01190.x.
Kulkarni G., Kannan P. K., Moe W. (2012). Using online search data to forecast new product sales. Decision Support Systems, 52 (3), 604–611. DOI: 10.1016/j.dss.2011.10.017.
Labrecque L. I., Milne G. R. (2012). Exciting red and competent blue: The importance of color in marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 40 (5), 711–727. DOI: 10.1007/s11747-010-0245-y.
Ladeira W. J., Nardi V. A. M., Santini F. D. O., Jardim W. C. (2019). Factors influencing visual attention: A meta-analysis. Journal of Marketing Management, 35 (17–18), 1710–1740. DOI: 10.1080/0267257X.2019.1662826.
Li X., Wang M., Chen Y. (2014). The impact of product photo on online consumer purchase intention: An image-processing enabled empirical study. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287267271_The_impact_of_product_photo_on_online_consumer_purchase_intention_An_image-processing_enabled_empirical_study.
Lichtlé M. C. (2007). The effect of an advertisement's colour on emotions evoked by attitude towards the ad: The moderating role of the optimal stimulation level. International Journal of Advertising, 26 (1), 37–62. DOI: 10.1080/02650487.2007.11072995.
Lin X., Featherman M., Brooks S. L., Hajli N. (2019). Exploring gender differences in online consumer purchase decision making: An online product presentation perspective. Information Systems Frontiers, 21 (5), 1187–1201. DOI: 10.1007/s10796-018-9831-1.
Maldonado Moscoso P. A., Anobile G., Burr D. C., Arrighi R., Castaldi E. (2022). Symmetry as a grouping cue for numerosity perception. Scientific Reports, 12 (1), 14418. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-18386-3.
Mudambi S. M., Schuff D. (2010). What makes a helpful online review? A study of customer reviews on Amazon.com. MIS Quarterly, 34 (1), 185–200. DOI: 10.2307/20721420.
Narayanan S., Kalyanam K. (2015). Position effects in search advertising and their moderators: A regression discontinuity approach. Marketing Science, 34 (3), 388–407. DOI: 10.1287/mksc.2014.0893.
Nguyen D. H., De Leeuw S., Dullaert W. E. (2018). Consumer behaviour and order fulfilment in online retailing: A systematic review. International Journal of Management Reviews, 20 (2), 255–276. DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12129.
Pieters R., Wedel M. (2004). Attention capture and transfer in advertising: Brand, pictorial, and text-size effects. Journal of Marketing, 68 (2), 36–50. DOI: 10.1509/jmkg.68.2.36.27794.
Ramezani Nia M., Shokouhyar S. (2020). Analyzing the effects of visual aesthetic of web pages on users' responses in online retailing using the VisAWI method. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 14 (4), 357–389. DOI: 10.1108/JRIM-11-2018-0147.
Schank R. C., Abelson R. P. (1977). Scripts, plans, goals, and understanding: An inquiry into human knowledge structures. Psychology Press.
Seo Y. W., Chae S. W., Lee K. C. (2012). The impact of human brand image appeal on visual attention and purchase intentions at an e-commerce website. In: Pan J. S., Chen S. M., Nguyen N. T. (eds). Intelligent Information and Database Systems. ACIIDS 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 7198, 1–9. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-28493-9_1.
Teck Weng J., Cyril de Run E. (2013). Consumers' personal values and sales promotion preferences effect on behavioural intention and purchase satisfaction for consumer product. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 25 (1), 70–101. DOI: 10.1108/13555851311290948.
Ton Z., Raman A. (2010). The effect of product variety and inventory levels on retail store sales: A longitudinal study. Production and Operations Management, 19 (5), 546–560. DOI: 10.1111/j.1937-5956.2010.01120.x.
Treisman A. M., Gelade G. (1980). A feature-integration theory of attention. Cognitive Psychology, 12 (1), 97–136. DOI: 10.1016/0010-0285(80)90005-5.
Viola P., Jones M. (2001). Rapid object detection using a boosted cascade of simple features. Proceedings of the IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 1, I–I. DOI: 10.1109/CVPR.2001.990517.
Wolfe J. M. (2021). Guided search 6.0: An updated model of visual search. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 28 (4), 1060–1092. DOI: 10.3758/s13423-020-01859-9.
Yang J., Niu Y., Luo Y. (2023). More is not better: An inverted U-shaped relationship between advertising creative strategies and consumer review valence. E3S Web of Conferences, 409, 03003. DOI: 10.1051/e3sconf/202340903003.
Zhang N., Fan X., He L., Cheng X., Zhang L., Liu R. (2024). The impact of the seller's facial image on consumer purchase behavior in peer-to-peer accommodation platforms. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 80, 103932. DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2024.103932.
Zinko R., Stolk P., Furner Z., Almond B. (2020). A picture is worth a thousand words: How images influence information quality and information load in online reviews. Electronic Markets, 30 (4), 775–789. DOI: 10.1007/s12525-019-00345-y.
Kotelnitskaia A. A., Mirzoyan A. G. (2024). Perception of commercial advertising by generations Y and Z. Upravlenets, 15 (5), 103–115 (in Russian). DOI: 10.29141/2218‑5003‑2024‑15‑5‑7.
Lapo V. F. (2014). Efficiency of investment stimulation methods in a timber industry complex: An econometric research. Applied Econometrics, 33, 30–50 (in Russian).
Martsenyuk A. O., Mirzoyan A. G., Lavrinenko P. A. (2025). Factors of consumer choice of marketplaces
for online purchases. Upravlenets, 16 (3), 92–108 (in Russian). DOI: 10.29141/2218‑5003‑2025‑16‑3‑7.
Agarwal A., Hosanagar K., Smith M. D. (2011). Location, location, location: An analysis of profitability of position in online advertising markets. Journal of Marketing Research, 48 (6), 1057–1073. DOI: 10.1509/jmr.08.0468.
Ajzen I., Fishbein M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. Englewood Cliffs.
Babin B. J., Hardesty D. M., Suter T. A. (2003). Color and shopping intentions: The intervening effect of price fairness and perceived affect. Journal of Business Research, 56 (7), 541–551. DOI: 10.1016/S0148-2963(01)00246-6.
Chernev A. (2005). Feature complementarity and assortment in choice. Journal of Consumer Research, 31 (4), 748–759. DOI: 10.1086/426608.
Chi M., Pan M., Huang R. (2021). Examining the direct and interaction effects of picture color cues and textual cues related to color on accommodation-sharing platform rental purchase. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 99, 103066. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhm.2021.103066.
Cluley R. (2018). The construction of marketing measures: The case of viewability. Marketing Theory, 18 (3), 287–305. DOI: 10.1177/1470593117753981.
Cyr D., Head M., Larios H., Pan B. (2009). Exploring human images in website design: A multi-method approach. MIS Quarterly, 33 (3), 539–566. DOI: 10.2307/20650308.
Erasmus A. C., Donoghue S., Dobbelstein T. (2014). Consumers' perception of the complexity of selected household purchase decisions. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 21 (3), 293–305. DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2014.02.008.
Feifan H. (2023). The applications of anchoring effect in the marketing field. Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communication Studies, 1 (3). DOI: 10.61173/19j5p029.
Fürst A., Pecornik N., Hoyer W. D. (2024). How product complexity affects consumer adoption of new products: The role of feature heterogeneity and interrelatedness. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 52 (2), 329–348. DOI: 10.1007/s11747-023-00933-7.
Gerpott T. J., Berends J. (2022). Competitive pricing on online markets: A literature review. Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, 21 (6), 596–610. DOI: 10.1057/s41272-022-00390-x.
Gorji M., Siami S. (2020). How sales promotion display affects customer shopping intentions in retails. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 48 (12), 1337–1355. DOI: 10.1108/IJRDM-12-2019-0407.
Hussain Z., Majeed M. U., Khan A. (2024). The impact of visual content marketing on customer purchasing behavior: Evidence from Pakistan's fashion industry. International Journal of Marketing, Communication and New Media, May 2024, 6–25. DOI: 10.54663/2182-9306.2024.SpecialIssueMD.6-25.
Im H., Ju H. W., Johnson K. K. (2021). Beyond visual clutter: The interplay among products, advertisements, and the overall webpage. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 15 (4), 804–821. DOI: 10.1108/JRIM-10-2020-0213.
Kato T. (2022). Perceived color quality: The effect of light reflection brightness of a car's exterior design on consumers' purchase intentions. International Journal of Engineering Business Management, 14, 1–10. DOI: 10.1177/18479790221126791.
Kees J. (2011). Advertising framing effects and consideration of future consequences. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 45 (1), 7–32. DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-6606.2010.01190.x.
Kulkarni G., Kannan P. K., Moe W. (2012). Using online search data to forecast new product sales. Decision Support Systems, 52 (3), 604–611. DOI: 10.1016/j.dss.2011.10.017.
Labrecque L. I., Milne G. R. (2012). Exciting red and competent blue: The importance of color in marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 40 (5), 711–727. DOI: 10.1007/s11747-010-0245-y.
Ladeira W. J., Nardi V. A. M., Santini F. D. O., Jardim W. C. (2019). Factors influencing visual attention: A meta-analysis. Journal of Marketing Management, 35 (17–18), 1710–1740. DOI: 10.1080/0267257X.2019.1662826.
Li X., Wang M., Chen Y. (2014). The impact of product photo on online consumer purchase intention: An image-processing enabled empirical study. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287267271_The_impact_of_product_photo_on_online_consumer_purchase_intention_An_image-processing_enabled_empirical_study.
Lichtlé M. C. (2007). The effect of an advertisement's colour on emotions evoked by attitude towards the ad: The moderating role of the optimal stimulation level. International Journal of Advertising, 26 (1), 37–62. DOI: 10.1080/02650487.2007.11072995.
Lin X., Featherman M., Brooks S. L., Hajli N. (2019). Exploring gender differences in online consumer purchase decision making: An online product presentation perspective. Information Systems Frontiers, 21 (5), 1187–1201. DOI: 10.1007/s10796-018-9831-1.
Maldonado Moscoso P. A., Anobile G., Burr D. C., Arrighi R., Castaldi E. (2022). Symmetry as a grouping cue for numerosity perception. Scientific Reports, 12 (1), 14418. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-18386-3.
Mudambi S. M., Schuff D. (2010). What makes a helpful online review? A study of customer reviews on Amazon.com. MIS Quarterly, 34 (1), 185–200. DOI: 10.2307/20721420.
Narayanan S., Kalyanam K. (2015). Position effects in search advertising and their moderators: A regression discontinuity approach. Marketing Science, 34 (3), 388–407. DOI: 10.1287/mksc.2014.0893.
Nguyen D. H., De Leeuw S., Dullaert W. E. (2018). Consumer behaviour and order fulfilment in online retailing: A systematic review. International Journal of Management Reviews, 20 (2), 255–276. DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12129.
Pieters R., Wedel M. (2004). Attention capture and transfer in advertising: Brand, pictorial, and text-size effects. Journal of Marketing, 68 (2), 36–50. DOI: 10.1509/jmkg.68.2.36.27794.
Ramezani Nia M., Shokouhyar S. (2020). Analyzing the effects of visual aesthetic of web pages on users' responses in online retailing using the VisAWI method. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 14 (4), 357–389. DOI: 10.1108/JRIM-11-2018-0147.
Schank R. C., Abelson R. P. (1977). Scripts, plans, goals, and understanding: An inquiry into human knowledge structures. Psychology Press.
Seo Y. W., Chae S. W., Lee K. C. (2012). The impact of human brand image appeal on visual attention and purchase intentions at an e-commerce website. In: Pan J. S., Chen S. M., Nguyen N. T. (eds). Intelligent Information and Database Systems. ACIIDS 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 7198, 1–9. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-28493-9_1.
Teck Weng J., Cyril de Run E. (2013). Consumers' personal values and sales promotion preferences effect on behavioural intention and purchase satisfaction for consumer product. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 25 (1), 70–101. DOI: 10.1108/13555851311290948.
Ton Z., Raman A. (2010). The effect of product variety and inventory levels on retail store sales: A longitudinal study. Production and Operations Management, 19 (5), 546–560. DOI: 10.1111/j.1937-5956.2010.01120.x.
Treisman A. M., Gelade G. (1980). A feature-integration theory of attention. Cognitive Psychology, 12 (1), 97–136. DOI: 10.1016/0010-0285(80)90005-5.
Viola P., Jones M. (2001). Rapid object detection using a boosted cascade of simple features. Proceedings of the IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 1, I–I. DOI: 10.1109/CVPR.2001.990517.
Wolfe J. M. (2021). Guided search 6.0: An updated model of visual search. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 28 (4), 1060–1092. DOI: 10.3758/s13423-020-01859-9.
Yang J., Niu Y., Luo Y. (2023). More is not better: An inverted U-shaped relationship between advertising creative strategies and consumer review valence. E3S Web of Conferences, 409, 03003. DOI: 10.1051/e3sconf/202340903003.
Zhang N., Fan X., He L., Cheng X., Zhang L., Liu R. (2024). The impact of the seller's facial image on consumer purchase behavior in peer-to-peer accommodation platforms. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 80, 103932. DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2024.103932.
Zinko R., Stolk P., Furner Z., Almond B. (2020). A picture is worth a thousand words: How images influence information quality and information load in online reviews. Electronic Markets, 30 (4), 775–789. DOI: 10.1007/s12525-019-00345-y.
