Previous studies on WOM have stressed the importance of peer consumer reviews in making purchase decision. When people follow the others purchase decision on the Internet, online herd behavior occurs. This paper presents three experiments that examine herd behavior in virtual communities: In experiment 1, a 2 (Volume: sales/recommendation) online experiment was conducted. Experiment 2 investigated herd effects using a 2 (Number of volume: relative/absolute)　×　2 (Number of scale: large/small) online experiment. Online experiment 3 examined herd effects using a 2 (Number of experience-sharing messages: more/fewer) × 2 (Number of recommendations: more/fewer) online experiment. These experiments involved 484 people in a Taiwanese virtual community. Results demonstrated that consumer recommendation volume causes significantly more frequent online herd behavior compared with sales volume. This study advances the literature on online herd behavior in virtual communities.

The rising popularity of online shopping, scholars to investigate how different promotional formats motivates online purchasing intention, and decisions. This study adopts the extant literature to investigate the effects of consumer value perceptions, product type, and brand familiarity on online purchasing intention through two experimental designs. Experiment Ⅰ manipulates 2(promotional formats: bonus pack/price discount)×2(consumer value perceptions: utilitarian value/hedonic value). Experiment Ⅱ manipulates 2(promotional formats: bonus pack/price discount)×2(product type: search product/experience product). Experiment Ⅲ manipulates the influence of 2(promotional formats: bonus pack/price discount) × 2(brand familiarity: high/low) on the purchasing intention. This study found that utilitarian consumer prefers price discounts, while hedonic consumer prefers a bonus pack. Further, the search for products with price discounts increases the purchase intention. This study offers promotion strategies for firms to stimulate online consumer purchase intention.