Digital Commerce and the Digitally Connected Enterprise

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Paper Type

Complete

Paper Number

2159

Description

Merchant pictures are essential website elements in digital platforms. However, it is still unclear whether and how different pictures affect merchants’ market performance. We characterize the distinction of pictures from content (the type of objects in a picture) and composition (the arrangement of objects to make it compelling) two aspects. Specifically, we categorize picture content into three types, either brand, product, or environment. We construct a set of compositional features under the guidance of human visual perception theories to account for the effect of picture composition. With a panel dataset from a daily-deal platform, we find both content and composition can affect the sales of merchants. Composition tends to be the aggregate effect of compositional features instead of independently. Merchants of high brand awareness can benefit from displaying brand information as picture content. However, the effect of content will decrease with merchants’ time on the market and cumulative sales.

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Dec 14th, 12:00 AM

Content and Composition: Understanding The Impact of Merchant Pictures on Market Performance

Merchant pictures are essential website elements in digital platforms. However, it is still unclear whether and how different pictures affect merchants’ market performance. We characterize the distinction of pictures from content (the type of objects in a picture) and composition (the arrangement of objects to make it compelling) two aspects. Specifically, we categorize picture content into three types, either brand, product, or environment. We construct a set of compositional features under the guidance of human visual perception theories to account for the effect of picture composition. With a panel dataset from a daily-deal platform, we find both content and composition can affect the sales of merchants. Composition tends to be the aggregate effect of compositional features instead of independently. Merchants of high brand awareness can benefit from displaying brand information as picture content. However, the effect of content will decrease with merchants’ time on the market and cumulative sales.

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