Is This Review Believable? A Study of Factors Affecting the Credibility of Online Consumer Reviews from an ELM Perspective

Abstract

With the ever-increasing popularity of online consumer reviews, understanding what makes an online review believable has attracted increased attention from both academics and practitioners. Drawing on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), this study examines four information cues used to evaluate the credibility of online reviews: Argument quality, source credibility, review consistency, and review sidedness, under different levels of involvement and expertise. We conducted an online survey that involved users of Epinions.com, a popular online consumer review website, to test the research model empirically. Consistent with previous research, the results reveal that argument quality, a central cue, was the primary factor affecting review credibility. Participants also relied on peripheral cues such as source credibility, review consistency, and review sidedness when evaluating online consumer reviews. Review sidedness had a stronger impact on review credibility when the recipient had a low involvement level and a high expertise level. However, the other interaction effects were not significant. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these results.

A study of factors that contribute to online review helpfulness

“…To maintain the value of online reviews and to address concerns about their credibility and quality (Cheung, Sia, & Kuan, 2012), some online review sites allow readers to ''review the reviews.'' The most common approach is to rate a review as ''Helpful'' or ''Not Helpful'' (Baek et al, 2012;Li et al, 2013).…”

Will video be the next generation of e-commerce product reviews? Presentation format and the role of product type

“…For example, consumers exhibit preferences for the extent of objective and subjective information presented in online reviews for different product types. Hence, vendors could list online reviews that will be preferred and perceived as being more useful, and supply review templates to improve review credibility (Archak et al 2011;Cheung et al 2012a). Similarly, if firms can understand the impact of different presentation formats they could proactively use those formats that will have the desired impact.…”

“…Hence, researchers have taken up investigation on various features and components of online reviews to evaluate their influence on consumer perceptions. They find that the severity of language used in the review, star ratings, and reviewers' identities and backgrounds, among other factors, play significant roles (Cheung et al 2012a;Duan et al 2008a;Forman et al 2008; A C C E P T E D M A N U S C R I P T…”

eWOM credibility on social networking sites: A framework

“…Review consistency can be an important 'heuristic' cue of credibility (Cheung et al 2012) which many third party eWOM hosting websites try to leverage by displaying aggregated review information to users (Dellarocas 2003). However, there may be temporal concerns with consensus of information as over time consumers may supplement the eWOM they receive with their own brand experiences (Christiansen and Tax 2000).…”