Visual contrast to reduce crowding and increase shopping intentions in product displays

Purpose Consumers seeking detailed product information pose challenges to managers hoping to optimize product displays. Although additional product information may entice consumers, it may also repel them with overcrowded displays. The purpose of this paper is to propose and test a subtle method to help marketers mitigate overcrowding in information-rich product displays: visually contrasting the foreground objects in the product display. Design/methodology/approach The authors report one field and two lab experiments that test their hypotheses. (An additional lab experiment is included in the Web Appendix). Findings This study shows that visually contrasting foreground objects from one another can reduce perceived display crowdedness (mediator), increase perceived display aesthetics (mediator) and increase shopping intentions (dependent measure), effects that increase with the consumer’s aesthetics appreciation (moderator). These findings are important because managers may fear visually contrasting foreground objects in product displays, as was confirmed in a motivational study in which managers preferred a lower-contrasted display over a higher-contrasted display, even though the higher-contrasted display outperformed the lower-contrasted display in click-through-rates. Originality/value Prior research indicates that increasing the interstitial space among products in a display can reduce display crowdedness and improve display evaluations while increasing shopping intentions. However, the extra interstitial space takes up room and thus sacrifices the amount of product information “above the fold” on a Web page. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to propose increasing visual contrast between foreground objects in a product display to reduce crowdedness and increase shopping intentions.