Less is more: Online consumer ratings' format affects purchase intentions and processing |
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| Authors: | Alena Kostyk Mihai Niculescu James M. Leonhardt |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Marketing Department, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, USA;2. Department of Managerial Sciences, The University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV, USA |
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| Abstract: | Online customer ratings of products and services are commonplace in e‐commerce; however, the format in which these ratings are presented to consumers can vary. Although not anticipated by classical models of decision making, latter models such as prospect theory and feelings‐as‐information theory suggest that the presentation format of online customer ratings could affect subsequent consumer decision making. In the present research, 3 empirical studies test whether online customer ratings' formats differentially affect consumer purchase intentions. The results offer support for feeling‐as‐information theory and suggest that online ratings presented in a mean (vs. distribution) format result in higher purchase intentions as a result of increased processing fluency. Implications for the presentation of online consumer ratings in e‐commerce, based on these findings, are addressed. |
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| Keywords: | consumer decision making e‐commerce metacognition online consumer ratings processing fluency |
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