No abstract

This article quantifies the impact of retailer generated content, such as information, comparisons, and reviews, which may not be helpful to the consumer. The article uses 42,636 reviews spanning 44 products that offer different combinations of the three-aforementioned retailer generated content to isolate the impact of each. Our results indicate that such content cannot replace the utility of the review but can make a significant contribution towards satisfying the consumers need for information and help. The results also indicate that the information contained in such retailer generated content is more important for search and less so for experience goods. These results have important implications for an online retailer or review platform investing in content creation and management.

In spite of affordability, portability, and convenience of mobile handheld devices, there are a number of usability problems associated with Web access through those devices, largely attributable to their inherent physical constraints. In the past decade, there have been increasing empirical studies on interface issues and usability of mobile handheld devices and mobile Web. However, researchers have been frequently using emulators of handheld devices running on desktop computers instead of real, physical handheld devices in those studies. Such a phenomenon raises validity and generalizability concerns given the differences between emulators and physical devices. This research empirically investigates whether the user performance and perception of mobile Web on an emulator is equivalent to or at least consistent with that on a physical device. The findings suggest that an emulator may not be able to emulate user performance and perception with physical handheld devices, and thus should be used with caution.