If you wish to sell your old laptop online before buying a new tablet, restrain the urge to upload several photos as researchers have found that too many photos can confuse consumers and dent your chances of selling.
Looking at more photos when making product comparisons can ultimately inhibit consumers from noticing what differentiates them in the first place.
"The intuition that 'seeing more is always better' does not consider the possibility that when presented with too many product photos, the way we process information is altered," said Jayson Shi Jia from the University of Hong Kong.
Across six experiments, participants were shown photos of comparative products to study the impact that increasing the number of additional photos for each item had on consumer perceptions and the overall decision making process.
In one experiment, participants were shown photos of two different shoes in an online shopping environment.
Some participants saw only a single 'main photo' of each shoe while others were given 'additional views' for each shoe.
Participants who saw the additional product photos were both less confident about their decision and liked and valued the product less than those who saw only one photo for each shoe.
The study appeared in the Journal of Consumer Research.
