Consumers' need for negative product information before reading reviews

Abstract

Negative product-related information is crucial to consumers in purchase decisions. Consumers perceive negative information stronger than positive, and next to a stronger perception, consumers also have a high demand for negative product aspects, as these show the problem areas of a product and can help avoid losses. But negative product-related information is not available in the product search process until the customer reads reviews at a very late phase of the decision process. Even though we know about a bias in perception of negative information, little is known about the exact need for negative product-related information during the search process. We examine the need for negative product-related information throughout the purchase-decision process for different product types. Insights about the need for negative product-related information can inform ecommerce platform providers how to design a better product search on their site.