Selling Products in the E-Marketplace: Do Fairness Concerns Matter for the Deployment of Product Visualization Tools?

Deploying product visualization tools (PVTs) can reduce consumers’ product fit uncertainty in e-marketplaces. This article examines the impact of PVTs on selling products. Consumers are fairness-minded. We develop a game-theoretical framework and find that PVTs can be deployed when consumer fairness concerns are relatively weak. Highly precise PVTs can facilitate an all-win outcome for the supplier, retailer, and consumers if the product has low quality. Such an all-win outcome may also be achieved if product quality is higher than a certain level and the degree of product visualization precision is relatively low. We find that the region of an all-win outcome of deploying PVTs will expand with decreased degree of consumer fairness concerns. Thus, consumer fairness concerns are advised to be measured when deploying PVTs in e-marketplaces. Moreover, demand will decrease if product quality and the degree of product visualization precision are high. Consequently, an all-lose outcome for the supplier, retailer, and consumers will occur. Thus, deploying PVTs for high-quality products is not wise when the degree of product visualization precision is relatively high. This article provides managerial insights into the optimal strategy for deploying PVTs in e-marketplaces when selling to fairness-minded consumers.