Liqiang Huang

Comprehension and Assessment of Product Reviews: A Review-Product Congruity Proposition

This work anchors on the theories of cognitive fit and schema congruity to advance a review-product congruity proposition. The proposition states that the effects of product review content (either attribute or experience based) on the product review comprehension (reflected by perceived cognitive effort and review comprehension time) and assessment (manifested by perceived review helpfulness) of a consumer are contingent on the assessed product type (either search or experience product). The results of our first experiment support the proposition by revealing that the two matching conditions, (1) attribute-based reviews describing a search product and (2) experience-based reviews describing an experience product, could lead consumers to perceive higher review helpfulness and lower cognitive effort (subjective measure) to comprehend the reviews. However, the subjective evaluation of cognitive effort is not reinforced by the resulting review comprehension time (an objective assessment of comprehension effort), which suggests that consumers spend significantly more time processing reviews in the presence of the two matching conditions. A second experiment was conducted using the think-aloud method to gain further insights into the effects. We found that under the review-product matching conditions, consumers engage in deeper-level comprehension and expend more time in comprehension without realizing it, compared to consumers under the mismatching conditions. This research extends our current understanding of how review content and product reviews jointly influence the comprehension and assessment behavior of the consumer, and provides guidelines on the identification and the presentation of reviews to facilitate the judgment and decision making of potential consumers.

The effect of online and offline word-of-mouth on new product diffusion

This study investigates how the online and offline communication channels jointly influence a firms new product diffusion. Considering the online and offline word-of-mouth effect, we compare three strategies through which a firm diffuses its product, i.e. offline diffusion strategy, online diffusion strategy and both offline and online diffusion strategy. The findings indicate that product peak sales rate and cumulative sales at peak time would be highest when managers market their products only through the online channel. However, product peak adopting time is not determined by the strategy which the manager takes, but is contingent on the relationship among the online/offline innovation effect, online/offline imitation effect and the proportion of offline consumers. Further parameter analysis provides several managerial insights.

Do we order product review information display? How?

We examine the review order effect on customer evaluations.Ordered reviews are more helpful than random ones.Ordered reviews are easier to comprehend than random ones.Product type moderates the effect of ordered reviews on review helpfulness. This article examines whether (if so, how) ordered (versus random) product review display would be more helpful and easier to comprehend. The results from a set of experiments show that product reviews ordered by their types (i.e., presenting an attribute/experience-based review before another type) are perceived to be more helpful and easier to comprehend. We further observed that displays of attribute-based product reviews followed by experience-based product reviews are perceived to be more helpful for a search product. Likewise, displays of experience-based product reviews followed by attribute-based product reviews are more helpful for an experience product.

Seller reputation or product presentation? An empirical investigation from cue utilization perspective

This study investigates the joint effects of seller reputation and product presentation on perceived product quality.The way of cues utilization in customers product quality assessment is contingent on the product involvement.The effect of product presentation on product evaluation is weakened by seller reputation under low-involvement situations.High rich product presentation can capture more attention and the effect is also contingent on the level of product involvement. This study examines the interaction effects of two types of cues in different scopes (i.e., seller reputation as a high-scope cue and product presentation as a low-scope cue) on consumer product quality evaluation, under different involvement situations. Drawing on the cue utilization theory and involvement-related literature, we propose that cues used in peoples decision making processes are contingent on product involvement. Through the conduction of behavioral experiments with eye-tracking technology, the findings show that, under high-involvement situations, both seller reputation and product presentation significantly and independently influence product quality evaluation while their interaction effect does not. While under low-involvement situations, seller reputation significantly influences the product evaluation and moderates the effect of product presentation on consumer product quality evaluation. The effect of product presentation on product evaluation is weakened by seller reputation. The findings, to some extent, are reinforced by the eye-tracking data through the trace and analysis of fixation count and fixation time. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Effects of model eye gaze direction on consumer visual processing: Evidence from China and America

Abstract The question of how to design attractive model in online advertising is especially important for online operators of electronic commerce websites. This study examines how a model’s eye gaze direction influences consumers’ visual processing, taking into consideration smiling facial expressions for both Chinese and American consumers. Drawing on shared signal theory and cultural differences, a set of eye-tracking experiments was performed. The results show that consumer arousal is much higher when the model has a smiling facial expression paired with a direct eye gaze, compared to an averted eye gaze. This effect is much stronger for Chinese consumers than American consumers. However, for cognitive information processing, we found that consumers process product information on a deeper level when the model has a smiling facial expression paired with an averted eye gaze, compared to a direct eye gaze. Although there is a significant difference between Chinese and American consumers in processing the product brand, no significant differences were identified in their processing of the text. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.