The importance of website content in online purchasing across different types of products

Several authors have suggested that the importance of website content elements in online purchasing varies across different types of products. Our aim is to empirically test this proposition. Here, we focus on goods versus services and hedonic versus utilitarian products. After reviewing the literature on the role of website content, we hypothesize which elements are more important for which type of product. The results of an empirical study confirm most of the different roles across different types of products. This suggests that retailers would profit from taking the differences in product types into account in designing their online stores.