Narrative information on secondhand products in e-commerce

Abstract

Our study aims to examine how narrative information influences consumers’ perceived persuasiveness of secondhand product information. We conducted three experiments. The results show that narrative information leads to higher perceived persuasiveness when secondhand products are for self-use and lower perceived persuasiveness when secondhand products are not for self-use (studies 1, 2, and 3). Furthermore, its effect is mediated by reactance (studies 1 and 3). Our study contributes to the literature by clarifying the effect of narrative information on online secondhand shopping. For sellers, our study highlights how information dealing with usage-based attributes should be presented. For consumers, our study emphasizes important aspects of information to pay attention to.