Journal Article

Popularity Information and Online Purchases: Consumer Interpretation as the Moderator

吳玲玲(Ling-Ling Wu), 李藍瑜(Lynne Lee)

2018

Overview

Popularity information of products, frequently observed by consumers for making purchase decisions, has become an even more common point of reference in E-commerce where such information is readily updated. This study investigates how consumers interpret breadth of appeal and sales volume, which are two common kinds of popularity information that often co-exist on the Internet, with different inferences (quality evaluation or social comparison) under conditions when the two kinds of popularity information are congruent or incongruent. It is hypothesized that when a product’s breadth of appeal and sales volume are incongruent, the probability of purchasing a narrow-appeal product significantly increases compared to the condition of congruence; moreover, the magnitude of increase between the two conditions of congruency is higher for consumers with the inference of quality evaluation compared to that of social comparison. The method of laboratory experiment was adopted, with 200 participants. The empirical results strongly supported the proposed hypotheses and provided practical implications for e-commerce.

• Publisher: 國立臺灣大學管理學院,National Taiwan University Press, NTU College of Management
• Subject: Consumer behavior / Consumers / Electronic commerce / Popularity / Product quality / Purchase intention