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Arousal, valence, and volume: how the influence of online review characteristics differs with respect to utilitarian and hedonic products

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  • Jie Ren
  • Jeffrey V. Nickerson

Abstract

Online reviews influence consumers’ purchase decisions. Product type – specifically, whether a product is utilitarian or hedonic – can help explain how consumers react to reviews. Characteristics of reviews – in particular, valence, measured by ratings, the arousal level of the language used in the text and the volume of the reviews – provide heuristics that consumers may use in making purchase decisions. Product type moderates the effect of these characteristics. Empirical evidence for this claim comes from multiple sources: a panel data analysis of 26,357 Amazon products and an online experiment with 541 participants. The findings of studies based on this evidence show that product type (hedonic or utilitarian) moderates the effect of the three heuristic attributes of online reviews (valence, volume, and arousal) on sales. The analysis uses OLS-fixed effects models and Granger causality tests. These findings explain why past studies have found that sometimes online review valence is more influential than volume and arousal with respect to sales and why sometimes this is reversed. Our findings have significant theoretical and practical implications for the design of choice architectures in online review systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Jie Ren & Jeffrey V. Nickerson, 2019. "Arousal, valence, and volume: how the influence of online review characteristics differs with respect to utilitarian and hedonic products," European Journal of Information Systems, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(3), pages 272-290, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:tjisxx:v:28:y:2019:i:3:p:272-290
    DOI: 10.1080/0960085X.2018.1524419
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    Cited by:

    1. Navid Aghakhani & Onook Oh & Dawn Gregg & Hemant Jain, 2023. "How Review Quality and Source Credibility Interacts to Affect Review Usefulness: An Expansion of the Elaboration Likelihood Model," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 1513-1531, August.
    2. Kim, Da Yeon & Kim, Sang Yong, 2023. "Investigating the effect of customer-generated content on performance in online platform-based experience goods market," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    3. Henrik Sällberg & Shujun Wang & Emil Numminen, 2023. "The combinatory role of online ratings and reviews in mobile app downloads: an empirical investigation of gaming and productivity apps from their initial app store launch," Journal of Marketing Analytics, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(3), pages 426-442, September.
    4. Nima Jalali & Sangkil Moon & Moon-Yong Kim, 2023. "Profiling diverse reviewer segments using online reviews of service industries," Journal of Marketing Analytics, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(2), pages 130-148, June.

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