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The purpose of this research is to help better understand the impact of online user reviews on sales of search goods.

This research is based on digital camera sales data collected from amazon.com and two studies are included in this research. The first study is based on a static model and sample data from one time stamp. The second study is based on two sample data collected from two different time stamps, and a dynamic model is proposed.

The results from the first study reveal that the average online customer review, the number of online reviews, the price and the camera's physical properties such as the number of pixels and the optimal zoom number (but not LCD screen size) have significant influence on digital camera sales. The results from the second study show that the sales from the previous period are an important indicator for future sales. In addition, change in price, change in average online review rating and change in the total number of online reviews are all significantly associated with future sales.

The research reveals that there is a significant relationship between the online user review and sales of search goods, and the influence of online user reviews on search goods sales is different from that on experience goods. It also recognizes that the product specifications influence the sales of search goods. In addition, the research on search goods shows that price at the specific time and price changes are significant factors affecting sales.

The research indicates that retailers should provide channels for, and encourage, customer online reviews for search goods to improve sales. It is also beneficial for online retailers to provide detailed product attributes to help their customers make the purchase decision. Carefully designed and executed price promotions could also be effective ways to improve sales of searchable goods.

This study is one of the first attempts to investigate the impact of online user reviews on sales of search goods.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the credibility assessment and adoption of electronic word-of-mouth on online social-networking sites, social word-of-mouth (sWOM), where the author writes product reviews on Facebook and hopes their Facebook friends will buy these products. The readers of the sWOM message are aware of the author’s commercial intentions. sWOM messages on search goods and experience goods are considered separately.

Author of sWOM messages invites their closed circle of Facebook friends to participate in a survey. The respondents are randomly assigned to read a product review of a search good (i.e. a laptop computer) or an experience good (i.e. a moisturizer cream (beauty product)). The partial least squares method is used to analyze the data from 339 returns (166 for the search good and 173 for the experience good).

The sWOM readers’ assessments of the messages’ credibility remain free from commercial influence. While the traditional factors of credibility and author-reader tie strength continue to influence the adoption of sWOM message, readers’ perceptions of the sWOM author’s marketing skills is also a factor. The relationships between the constructs depend on whether the products are search or experience goods.

Few studies investigate the type of sWOM considered here. Commercially influenced sWOM messages are effective since the author’s marketing skills, and other often-cited factors, affect the credibility and adoption of sWOM. Thus, the equality-matching (friendship) relationship and the market-pricing (sales) relationship can work hand-in-hand in the sWOM context.

This paper provides an approach for branding a service. It accomplishes this by bringing together David Aaker’s brand identity framework, the 7Ps of services marketing and the economic classification of goods. The 7Ps of services are product, price, place, promotion, physical evidence, process and people. The economic classification divides goods into search, experience and credence goods. Typical examples for search, experience and credence goods are a consumer durable, a restaurant and a doctor respectively. The branding efforts needed for each of these goods is different. The approach recommends what should be done in terms of 7Ps for each of the three types of goods and integrates this effort with their branding.

The purpose of this paper is to study the use of online recommendation systems on e‐commerce sites is which becoming more common as marketers recognize their potential to improve their own operations as well as consumers' shopping experiences. Since some consumers question the credibility of these systems, this study compares responses to such systems (classified based on their source into seller and third party systems) with responses to recommendations coming directly from other consumers. The latter may also be better suited for consumers today since many of them utilize direct information from social media on a daily basis. Past research indicates that reactions to such recommendations may depend on the types of goods they describe and therefore this study also tests whether consumer responses vary with types of goods. The study examines consumer reactions to recommendations designed for search, experience, and credence goods. Finally, this study also explores the most desired features of recommendations to help marketers come up with the most effective recommendations that help facilitate purchasing decisions.

The study surveys a convenience sample of 202 undergraduate students to test these objectives. It was a 3 (product types) by 3 (recommendation types) factorial design with multiple dependent variables and three covariates.

The study reveals that, irrespective of the product type, consumers react differently to the three types of recommendations that are tested. This study shows that consumers have the most positive attitudes and most frequently utilize recommendations coming directly from other consumer. This suggests that more attention should be directed to these recommendations in marketing theory and practice. Consumers also hold more positive attitudes towards third‐party recommendation systems than recommendation systems coming from the seller. They also have more positive reactions toward recommendations designed for search and experience goods rather than credence products. Finally, the study also examines the usefulness of different characteristics of these recommendations to help online managers develop most effective recommendations online and finds that it varies with different types of recommendations and products for which recommendations are used.

In addition to the recommendation systems that have been explored in the past (seller and third party systems), the study examines reactions to recommendations coming directly from other consumers, as these recommendations may be better suited for today's audiences. The study shows which recommendation type is best received and most frequently used online. It also tests reactions to recommendations designed for different types of goods. This study includes credence goods, in addition to search and experience products, since consumer reactions to recommendations designed for credence goods have not been yet explored in the past research. It also found that recommendations are better received for goods with a higher number of search features. Finally, the study explores the specific features of different recommendation types and based on the findings proposes how these online recommendations should be structured to be most effective.

Investigates empirically the importance of buyer characteristics as well as product and service classifications on the informational content of advertising supply by sellers utilizing Yellow Pages advertisements from six US cities. The analysis and tests extend the categories used in previous tests by including so‐called “credence goods” by analysing the impact of alternative buyer characteristics as proxies for time and information costs. The intra‐city and, to a lesser extent, inter‐city comparisons lend support to the contemporary theory of advertising as information.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the applicability of the economics of information-driven product categorization – search vs experience products – when investigating online brand advertising and news synergies.

Randomized controlled post-test experiment with over 400 participants in three treatment groups involving exposures to paid advertising (banner ad-plus-banner ad) and publicity (news article-plus-banner ad and banner ad-plus-news article) for four products. Questionnaire upon web site exit tested differences in brand attitudes among treatment groups and product categories.

Findings indicate that including news about the brand in the online brand communication mix – either before or after ads – generates higher brand attitude scores for experience products. For search products sequence matters and brand attitudes are more positive when consumers are exposed to news articles first followed by advertisements.

Findings limited to the four product categories and student participants.

When promoting search goods online, brand managers should include publicity only before display advertising efforts. For experience goods, publicity generates higher brand attitude scores when included either before or while running display advertising.

First study examining online publicity and advertising synergies from an economics of information theory perspective separating search from experience goods when promoting new/unknown brands online. In the online environment, the line between journalistic/news and promotional/advertising text-based content has become increasingly blurred. Compared to paid online advertising, using third-party attributed communications sources like publicity increases message credibility. Adding product-related news and blog articles to banner advertisements may benefit from synergistic effects and have consumers process the brand message more extensively. The order of exposure to the different brand messages matters when promoting search as opposed to experience products online.

The purpose of this paper is to examine consumer reactions to product categories, online seller reputation, and brand name syllables.

This paper uses four experimental designs to explore the seller reputation, product category, and brand name syllable effects in internet shopping. The authors chose sellers of (low/high) repute from Yahoo Mall. ANOVA is used to evaluate the results.

Seller reputation moderates the effect of the brand name syllable level on purchase intention and product category moderates the effect of the brand name syllable level on purchase on internet (experiment 1). Consumers take the longest time to make purchasing decisions when buying credence goods or buying from sellers of low repute and that the response time mediates the moderating role of the product category (experiment 2) or reputation (experiment 3). Moreover, the effect of brand name syllable levels chosen/assigned by sellers of low repute is weakened for consumers with low (vs high) skepticism toward non-store shopping (experiment 4).

This study is helpful to online sellers if they can identify their reputation, product category and those consumers have skepticism, they can create extra profit through brand name syllable practice.

This paper extends the literature on consumers’ brand name syllable processing by identifying important moderators and probing into the decision process. The results allow us to substantiate prior research and suggest prescriptive strategies for internet retailers.

Empirically examines how certain variables influence the extent of external information search for banking services. The effects of perceived benefit, perceived cost, perceived risk, and perceived knowledge are tested within a proposed structural equation, cost‐benefit based Banking Services Model (BSM). Surveys a sample of 661 students at a major US university to gather data on their information search for banking services. The results reveal that the BSM provides a good fit to the data. Perceived benefit, cost and knowledge influence the extent of prepurchase bank information search. In addition, the consumers felt that it was more beneficial to obtain more information when there was a perceived benefit of lowering risk and when they already had some form of prior product knowledge. Implications of the BSM for services marketing management and consumer theory, limitations of the study, and future research are discussed.

Online reviews are increasingly available for a wide range of products and services. Several studies have demonstrated the benefits of the presence of customer reviews to an online retailer, but the issue of what makes online reviews helpful to a consumer in the process of making a purchase decision remains uninvestigated. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Given the strategic potential of online reviews, this study drew on past research to develop a conceptual understanding of the components of helpfulness and to further empirically test the model using actual online review data from iPeen.com in Taiwan. A content analysis of 989 reviews across four products identified the interplay effects of review sidedness, reviewer’s expertise, and product type on the helpfulness of an online review.

For search goods, consumers consider two-sided reviews to be more helpful than one-sided reviews when the reviewers are experts in writing such articles, whereas they consider two-sided reviews to be equally helpful as one-sided reviews when the reviewers are novices. Conversely, for experience goods, consumers consider one-sided reviews to be more helpful than two-sided reviews when the reviewers are experts in writing review articles, but they consider one-sided reviews to be equally helpful as two-sided reviews when the reviewers are novices.

With an understanding of how review sidedness affects online review helpfulness, online retailers could establish the policy for promoting the helpfulness of reviews more effectively.

This research yields at least three important contributions: first, it contributes to the message sidedness literature by showing which arguments (one- or two-sided) are deemed to be helpful; second, it contributes to the online peer review literature by demonstrating the importance of considering product type and heuristic cues (i.e. the reviewer’s expertise) when explaining helpfulness; and third, the results in this research demonstrate that people are drawn to dual-processing; that is, the judgment of online review helpfulness is determined by heuristic cues (e.g. the status of the reviewer) and systematic processing (e.g. review content).

The purpose of this paper is to investigate an antecedent of perceived authenticity in the relationship between product ethnicity (PE) and evaluations of foreign products. Moreover, the present study explores roles of product involvement and product type as moderators in the relationship between PE and authenticity.

A pretest was conducted to guide the selection of the product type utilized in the survey. With 200 South Korean panel data in Study 1, hypotheses were analyzed using multiple regression following the procedures outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986). With 288 US panel data in Study 2, mediation effects were analyzed using PROCESS by Hayes (2013).

The study provides strong evidences of the full mediating role of perceived authenticity between PE and consumer evaluations of foreign products. Experience goods accentuate the impact of congruent PE on authenticity relative to search goods. However, the product involvement as a moderator is not significant.

International marketing practitioners should attend to the importance of how source country consumers perceive the authenticity of foreign product. In particular, insights from findings will provide international marketers with a means to assess the efficacy of strategic communication messages designed to establish a perception of authenticity in the minds of consumers and a more effective approach to market segmentation in the foreign markets.

This study suggests the addition of authenticity into future studies of country of origin (COO) effects. As authenticity fully mediates the relationship between PE and product image evaluations, this study suggests the congruent product-country match as a signal of authenticity, in addition to product image. Moreover, this finding extends literature on COO effects by discussing the importance of authenticity in the context of experience goods relative to search goods.