How e-WOM recommendations influence product consideration and quality of choice: A motivation to process information perspective

A laboratory experiment examines the effects of electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) on consumer consideration and choice of an experience product. Specifically, we manipulated the number of consumer recommendations and the optimality of the recommended product in a realistic online shopping environment. The results indicate that e-WOM is likely to result in more time considering the recommended product. For consumers more motivated to process information, e-WOM recommendations lead to more time spent on the choice task overall. Further, consumers with less motivation to process information make suboptimal decisions based on e-WOM recommendations. Consumers with a high motivation to process information are willing to accept recommendations and switch from declared attribute preferences, but choose only optimal products. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.