Red background- higher bids

soolin

Ok I know it is the Daily Mail, but worth a thought

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2175121/Seeing-red-Study-finds-crimson-backgrounds-cause-eBay-shoppers-place-higher-bids.html

Must remember to use the red background in my light box in future!

RainbowDrops

Interesting, although the data were collected in 2008, and with the increas in people using the eBay app, I'm sure things have changed!

soolin

RainbowDrops wrote: »

Interesting, although the data were collected in 2008, and with the increas in people using the eBay app, I'm sure things have changed!

I agree, it's all a bit of nonsense really and I don't think it qualifies as research, but I'm happy to try anything.

Crowqueen

The problem with academic research is that the lead times are quite long as ...well... longer tea breaks I suppose . Seriously, this is why I put off doing a PhD, particularly in politics. By the time I finished it (it takes a minimum of three years to complete) the political landscape would have changed rapidly. I'm planning a PhD on the law and politics of Belarus now, but if the dictator there loses power before I present my whole project becomes...academic.

Boom boom. Actually, to be honest, most PhDs are 'academic', but I procrastinated for so long that research I did into electoral statistics in the light of alleged vote-rigging, started in 2008 off the back of 2006 Council of Europe documents about uncounted postal votes, was rendered academic by the 2010 election because no-one could have rigged an election that badly.

Personally I suffer from migraines and a crimson background would make me press back.

It's fine, I think, to use different colours in a listing, make it eyecatching, make it attract people, but I wonder at bright red because I would have thought gentle colours like pink, yellow, light blue, light grey, light green etc. would have been guaranteed to soothe. I think the nicest listings have some form of pastel background, with dark-coloured - not black - bold text. Many of the megalister book companies use the same template which is green and grey.

Perhaps though red excites people into bidding more. I could see that as the case if the text was in red, but the background would just make me feel sick.

soolin

Red or blue is a fairly common background colour to sell antiques but I don't know if that is historical or traditional rather than for any real purpose.

A lot of the shops I know with online viewing use mainly red velvet stands and switch to blue if the item clashes with red.

Oliver14

not exactly ground breaking research. They only used a sample of 28 auctions on one product so the conclusions are a little woolly