Experimental Evaluation of Peer Endorsement System Artifacts Using Best-of-Breed Ideals - Effects of Online Decision Confidence on Post-choice Regret

摘要

Peer endorsement systems (PES), systems for the collection and presentation of online product reviews represent a new and increasingly common sight on many e-Commerce websites. The number of reviews and scope of data presentation made possible by PESs pose demands on the information processing abilities of a typical customer. This study posits that differences in PES design based on quality and presentation of online customer reviews can impact user perceptions about whether they are getting "the whole story" about a product. Drawing on economic regret theory, we develop a theoretical model to test the impact of PES design on consumer's decision confidence and post-choice regret. We conduct an expost experimental analysis of two competing PES interfaces and show that key differences in PES design have a surprising and relevant impact on the way in which data from that interface is perceived and used by customers in the online decision-making process.