Lingnan study unveils both pretty and ugly faces win at social selling

The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted e-commerce around the globe, including the consumer to consumer (C2C) markets on platforms such as social media. Interestingly, Prof Peng Ling, Prof Cui Geng and Prof Chung Yu-ho from the Department of Marketing and International Business have found that not only do attractive faces get better results, unattractive faces also achieve better results than plain-looking faces in online selling, particularly in expertise-relevant products and for female consumers evaluating male sellers.

 

The research team rated over 10,000 hosts from more than 17,000 listings on the online homestay platform Airbnb using their profile pictures, then compared their annual occupancy rates. They found that hosts with attractive faces had a 6 per cent higher annual occupancy rate than those with plain-looking faces. Hosts with perfect faces had an occupancy rate as much as 22 per cent over those with plain-looking faces.

 

The team also studied the performance of those with unattractive faces. The result showed that unattractive Airbnb hosts had a 4 per cent higher annual occupancy rate on average compared to plain-looking hosts, and the most unattractive hosts had as much as a 16 per cent higher occupancy rate.

 

The team studied another e-commerce site, 5miles, and confirmed the same pattern.

 

The study also discovered that attractive sellers are considered more sociable and competent than their plain-looking counterparts, especially when selling items relevant to appearance such as cosmetics and skin care products, whereas unattractive sellers are thought of as more competent, especially when pitching technical products that require expertise, such as electronic products.

 

These novel findings, published in the latest issue of the prestigious international academic publication Journal of Marketing, give social sellers and e-marketers insight about how to leverage seller appearances in online selling.

 

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