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Beyond the review information: an investigation of individual- and group-based presentation forms of review information

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Abstract

Since most of today’s consumers make purchase decisions based on online reviews, managers and researchers have been keen to determine how best to present review information in an online shopping context to maximize their persuasive power. Most online reviews are presented post-by-post, whereby individual reviewers express their respective opinions but lack group dynamism. As a result, it is worth asking what would happen if individual reviews are presented as a group? Drawing on social presence theory and information adoption literature, we propose a research framework to investigate the influences of two alternative presentation forms of review information (i.e., individual-based vs. group-based) on multiple-facet consumer evaluation of reviews, as well as their adoption of review information. By conducting two experiments (Study 1: N = 319; Study 2: N = 101), we find that, when given the same review information, consumers presented with the grouped review information rated higher review quality and credibility, but lower understandability, than consumers who were presented with individual review information. In addition, review quality, credibility, and understandability mediated the influence of review presentation forms on the consumer adoption of review information. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

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Notes

  1. ChannelAdvisor. 2010. "Through the Eyes of the Consumer: Consumer Shopping Habits Survey." Retrieved 08 Dec 2019, from http://go.channeladvisor.com/rs/channeladvisor/images/us-wp-consumer-survey-2010.pdf

  2. Blasingame, J. 2014. "In the Age of the Customer, Customers Co-Own Your Brand Message." Retrieved 17 Mar 2020, from https://www.ageofthecustomer.com/index.php/in-the-age-of-the-customer-customers-co-own-your-brand-message/

  3. Institute, M. G. 2017. "Digital China: Powering the Economy to Global Competitiveness." Retrieved 19 Mar 2020, from https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/china/digital-china-powering-the-economy-to-global-competitiveness

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Funding

This project was partially supported by Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (No: R22G0110123; Y22G014484) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (No: 71771196; 71701110; 71821002; 71931009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Wanshu Niu, Liqiang Huang & Mingliang Chen

  2. School of Economics and Management, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China

    Xixi Li

  3. School of Business, Zhejiang University City College, Hangzhou, China

    Jie Zhang

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  1. Wanshu Niu
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Niu, W., Huang, L., Li, X. et al. Beyond the review information: an investigation of individual- and group-based presentation forms of review information. Inf Technol Manag 24, 159–176 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10799-022-00361-z

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