When do I profit? Uncovering boundary conditions on reputation effects in online auctions

Reputation profiles, based on customer feedback ratings, are important for achieving above average sales prices in online auctions. However, contradictory results in past research suggest that reputation effects may depend on information alternatives to customer feedback that sellers can provide to buyers. By explicitly modeling the competing assumptions of classical and contemporary approaches to buyer decision-making and using hierarchical linear modeling to analyse data from 363 online auctions, we found that sellers may benefit from carefully evaluating what information alternatives they combine with reputation profile to realize higher sales prices. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.