| Abstract: | Huge strides in technological development combined with marketing strategies have led to dramatic changes in the way information is transmitted and communicated to the consumers, and subsequently used by the consumers. Information has become a dominant factor in determining why, where, what, and how consumers shop, process information, and make decisions. While marketing information has always been an important factor in consumer decision‐making, its provision on demand and added convenience via the Internet has created a need to research the nature and amount of information that these technologies provide. Advertisements use different forms of persuasion to gain consumer attention, meet their economic and emotional shopping needs, to create a positive image of the product, brand, and the shopping medium, and influence consumers to purchase the product. Persuasion may be classified as functional congruity and self‐congruity routes to persuasion (Johar & Sirgy, 1991). Fifty websites were studied for utilitarian and value‐expressive forms of persuasion by product differentiation. The websites were classified as those selling tangible products only and those selling intangible products only, and those selling both tangible and intangible products. The paper will present results of the study along with a discussion and conclusion with implications on consumer well‐being. |
