When Seeing Helps Believing: The Interactive Effects of Previews and Reviews on E-Book Purchases

For many products, particularly digital content, consumers base purchase-related decisions on not only others’ evaluations (e.g., online reviews) but also their own direct experiences (e.g., previews). Many of them therefore combine “seeing” through their own encounters with “believing” the assessments of others, often being confronted with a situation wherein the former contradicts the latter. This study investigates the dynamics underlying the interactive relationships between online reviews and previews to shed light on how consumers collectively use these pre-buying resources as guidance in purchasing e-books. Our research reveals that consumers wisely leverage previews in accordance with the characteristics of reviews (e.g., volume, valence, and variance). The positive effects of previews increase with decreasing review volume and average valence. Consumers also rely heavily on previews in situations wherein a high variance exists among the indirect evaluations of reviewers. We detect the presence of order effects with respect to exposure to previews and reviews; exposure to previews after accessing reviews more effectively drives sales than when exposure to reviews precedes the encounters. These results provide content providers with useful managerial insights into how they can maximize consumers’ overall prepurchase experiences and enhance content sales through the excellent leveraging of previews and reviews.

• 저널Information Systems Research · 30(4) · 1164–1183
• 토픽Digital Marketing and Social Media · Sociology and Political Science
• DOI10.1287/isre.2019.0857
• 저자Angela Aerry Choi, Daegon Cho, Dobin Yim, Jae Yun Moon, Wonseok Oh