An eye-tracking study of the Elaboration Likelihood Model in online shopping

•Peripheral cue moderates elaboration on eye movements but not purchase intention.•Purchase intention is different between high and low elaborations under positive cue but not negative cue.•Under positive cue, high elaboration is longer fixation duration than low elaboration.•Under negative cue, low elaboration is longer fixation duration than high elaboration.•The relationship between purchase intention and eye movement is more significant in high elaboration with negative cue and in low elaboration with positive cue. This study uses eye-tracking to explore the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) in online shopping. The results show that the peripheral cue did not have moderating effect on purchase intention, but had moderating effect on eye movement. Regarding purchase intention, the high elaboration had higher purchase intention than the low elaboration with a positive peripheral cue, but there was no difference in purchase intention between the high and low elaboration with a negative peripheral cue. Regarding eye movement, with a positive peripheral cue, the high elaboration group was observed to have longer fixation duration than the low elaboration group in two areas of interest (AOIs); however, with a negative peripheral cue, the low elaboration group had longer fixation on the whole page and two AOIs. In addition, the relationship between purchase intention and eye movement of the AOIs is more significant in the high elaboration group when given a negative peripheral cue and in the low elaboration group when given a positive peripheral cue. This study not only examines the postulates of the ELM, but also contributes to a better understanding of the cognitive processes of the ELM. These findings have practical implications for e-sellers to identify characteristics of consumers’ elaboration in eye movement and designing customization and persuasive context for different elaboration groups in e-commerce.