Informational influence of online customer feedback: An empirical study

Abstract

Increasingly online retailers are allowing their customers to leave online feedback on the products or services they offer. There have been limited efforts in understanding the mechanism through which such online feedback affect consumers purchase decisions. In this article, we report an empirical study on the informational influence of online customer feedback (OCF), that is, how consumers decide to integrate the information content of the feedback into their purchase decisions. We argue that the perceived usefulness of OCF plays a central role in this process, as the effects of prior experience with OCF, consumer trust toward OCF, and perceived importance of OCF work through perceived usefulness. Hypotheses derived from our research model were supported with survey data, and results suggest new ways to improve the design of OCF systems. © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.