The congruent and comparative impacts of weather on consumer reviews: Evidence from an online forum and experiment

Abstract

This research examines the impact of weather on consumer reviews of products and services. Although anecdotal and empirical evidence indicate that weather influences consumers' choices and shopping behaviour, little is known about how weather impacts consumers' evaluations of products and services. We propose that consumer reviews are influenced by incidental weather conditions both during product experience and during retrospective product evaluation. Using both online consumer review data and an experiment, we find consistent evidence that: 1) weather during experience and during retrospection have directionally congruent impacts on the positivity of product reviews; 2) changes in weather from experience to retrospection result in a comparative effect, by which negative (positive) changes in weather from the time of experience to the time of review are associated with more positive (negative) reviews. This research offers strategic implications for the timing of direct marketing messages, such as mobile advertising and product review solicitation.