An Investigation of Color Effects in Product Cover Images

Product cover images are critical in captivating online shoppers and drawing them to explore products on e-commerce platforms. Despite their significance, limited research has explored their effects in the e-commerce domain. This study investigates the impact of color in product cover images, drawing insights from color psychology literature to explore how color temperature (warm, cool, and neutral tones) affects online product views. A dataset of 2,794 product cover images was collected from Etsy, a US handmade product e-commerce platform, to empirically validate the color effects. Our findings reveal that warm colors significantly enhance product views, whereas the use of cool colors weakly deter engagement. We further study the moderating effect of product price and find that the positive effect of warm and neutral color is stronger for high-priced products, although the effect of warm color is weak. This research contributes to the fields of color marketing and e-commerce by advancing the understanding of the color effect in product cover images. Moreover, it provides practical guidance to e-commerce sellers on strategically leveraging color and color combinations to attract and engage customers effectively.