Click, Feel, Buy: How Online Presentations Shape Purchase Decision

Online product presentation is the e-commerce equivalent of the salesperson—a persuasion technology that guides customers toward an informed purchase. Yet two decades of research, examining its cognitive, affective, and involvement effects in isolation, have left a fragmented and often contradictory evidence base. This study integrates that dispersed evidence into a single framework and tests it using meta-analysis and meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM). The results reveal that the routes to purchase are not equivalent: cognition and involvement influence purchase intention directly, whereas the effect of emotion is fully mediated by consumer attitude. Online presentation therefore persuades along two parallel paths—one deliberative, one affective—with different points of impact. Moderation analysis further shows that these effects vary systematically with region, gender, age, and product type, making localization and personalization pivotal to reach and persuasion. By resolving a long-standing inconsistency and specifying how and for whom online product presentation works, the study delivers both a consolidated theoretical foundation and an actionable blueprint for designing presentations in an increasingly immersive, technology driven retail environment.