TY - JOUR
T1 - User Reviews Variance, Critic Reviews Variance, and Product Sales
T2 - An Exploration of Customer Breadth and Depth Effects
AU - Wang, Feng
AU - Liu, Xuefeng
AU - Fang, Eric
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge the financial support from National Natural Science Foundation Grant of China ( 71402049 and 71328203 ) and Humanity and Social Science Fund of the Ministry of Education of China ( 14YJC630118 ).
PY - 2015/9/1
Y1 - 2015/9/1
N2 - Online user reviews constitute a new element of the marketing communication mix that can significantly affect product sales. A general consensus holds that positive user reviews valence benefits product sales, yet the effect of variance is less intuitive and current findings are mixed. We propose that user reviews variance actually constitutes a double-edged sword that can either hurt or help product sales, depending on the variance of critic reviews and other quality signals. Three complementary studies in multiple industries (movies, digital cameras, and books) with multiple methods (secondary data analysis and behavioral experiment) reveal three key insights in this setting. First, after recognizing a high variance in user reviews, many potential buyers may simply exclude the focal product from their consideration sets for fear that it does not match their needs and preferences, which is termed the customer breadth effect. Second, high user reviews variance, in combination with high critic reviews variance, can elicit a sense of uniqueness and thus enhance purchase intentions of some consumers, which is termed the customer depth effect. Third, quality signals (e.g., product cost and product extension) can strengthen the positive customer depth effect. The overall effects of user reviews variance, therefore, can be negative, insignificant, or even positive. These findings have important theoretical and managerial implications.
AB - Online user reviews constitute a new element of the marketing communication mix that can significantly affect product sales. A general consensus holds that positive user reviews valence benefits product sales, yet the effect of variance is less intuitive and current findings are mixed. We propose that user reviews variance actually constitutes a double-edged sword that can either hurt or help product sales, depending on the variance of critic reviews and other quality signals. Three complementary studies in multiple industries (movies, digital cameras, and books) with multiple methods (secondary data analysis and behavioral experiment) reveal three key insights in this setting. First, after recognizing a high variance in user reviews, many potential buyers may simply exclude the focal product from their consideration sets for fear that it does not match their needs and preferences, which is termed the customer breadth effect. Second, high user reviews variance, in combination with high critic reviews variance, can elicit a sense of uniqueness and thus enhance purchase intentions of some consumers, which is termed the customer depth effect. Third, quality signals (e.g., product cost and product extension) can strengthen the positive customer depth effect. The overall effects of user reviews variance, therefore, can be negative, insignificant, or even positive. These findings have important theoretical and managerial implications.
KW - Critic reviews
KW - Customer breadth
KW - Customer depth
KW - User reviews
KW - Variance
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jretai.2015.04.007
DO - 10.1016/j.jretai.2015.04.007
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84939253896
VL - 91
SP - 372
EP - 389
JO - Journal of Retailing
JF - Journal of Retailing
SN - 0022-4359
IS - 3
ER -