Coordinating supply-related scarcity appeals with online reviews

Elika Kordrostami; Yuping Liu-Thompkins; Vahid Rahmani

doi:10.1007/s11002-022-09625-8

Coordinating supply-related scarcity appeals with online reviews

Elika Kordrostami, Yuping Liu-Thompkins, Vahid Rahmani

Marketing

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Online reviews play an important role in consumer purchase decisions and have received much research attention. However, previous research has typically examined the effects of online review characteristics independent of firm marketing messages. We argue that how much average review rating influences consumers’ decisions depends on the presence of a scarcity appeal and its congruence with review volume information. Through a lab experiment and analyses of real-world data from Amazon.com, we show that claiming a product to have limited supply moves consumers toward more heuristic processing but only when review volume is consistent with the scarcity information. In contrast, when review volume is incongruent with the supply-based scarcity message, the incongruence prompts consumers to process information more carefully and reduces their reliance on review valence.

Original language	English (US)
Journal	Marketing Letters
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-022-09625-8
State	Published - Sep 2022

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Business and International Management
Economics and Econometrics
Marketing

Access to Document

10.1007/s11002-022-09625-8

Cite this

@article{8049d936c90548e9ab7671633d12b666,

title = "Coordinating supply-related scarcity appeals with online reviews",

abstract = "Online reviews play an important role in consumer purchase decisions and have received much research attention. However, previous research has typically examined the effects of online review characteristics independent of firm marketing messages. We argue that how much average review rating influences consumers{\textquoteright} decisions depends on the presence of a scarcity appeal and its congruence with review volume information. Through a lab experiment and analyses of real-world data from Amazon.com, we show that claiming a product to have limited supply moves consumers toward more heuristic processing but only when review volume is consistent with the scarcity information. In contrast, when review volume is incongruent with the supply-based scarcity message, the incongruence prompts consumers to process information more carefully and reduces their reliance on review valence.",

author = "Elika Kordrostami and Yuping Liu-Thompkins and Vahid Rahmani",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.",

year = "2022",

month = sep,

doi = "10.1007/s11002-022-09625-8",

language = "English (US)",

journal = "Marketing Letters",

issn = "0923-0645",

publisher = "Springer New York",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Coordinating supply-related scarcity appeals with online reviews

AU - Kordrostami, Elika

AU - Liu-Thompkins, Yuping

AU - Rahmani, Vahid

PY - 2022/9

Y1 - 2022/9

N2 - Online reviews play an important role in consumer purchase decisions and have received much research attention. However, previous research has typically examined the effects of online review characteristics independent of firm marketing messages. We argue that how much average review rating influences consumers’ decisions depends on the presence of a scarcity appeal and its congruence with review volume information. Through a lab experiment and analyses of real-world data from Amazon.com, we show that claiming a product to have limited supply moves consumers toward more heuristic processing but only when review volume is consistent with the scarcity information. In contrast, when review volume is incongruent with the supply-based scarcity message, the incongruence prompts consumers to process information more carefully and reduces their reliance on review valence.

AB - Online reviews play an important role in consumer purchase decisions and have received much research attention. However, previous research has typically examined the effects of online review characteristics independent of firm marketing messages. We argue that how much average review rating influences consumers’ decisions depends on the presence of a scarcity appeal and its congruence with review volume information. Through a lab experiment and analyses of real-world data from Amazon.com, we show that claiming a product to have limited supply moves consumers toward more heuristic processing but only when review volume is consistent with the scarcity information. In contrast, when review volume is incongruent with the supply-based scarcity message, the incongruence prompts consumers to process information more carefully and reduces their reliance on review valence.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85127244196&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85127244196&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s11002-022-09625-8

DO - 10.1007/s11002-022-09625-8

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85127244196

SN - 0923-0645

JO - Marketing Letters

JF - Marketing Letters

ER -

Coordinating supply-related scarcity appeals with online reviews

Abstract

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this