The Effect Of High Variance Of Reviews For A New Product On Purchase Intention

It's ubiquitous that new products receive reviews with high variance,which means there exist inconsistent opinions,but does this type of controversy necessarily exert negative effect on consumers' purchase intention and product performance?Need the firms spend much time and money to eliminate this phenomenon?It's very important for companies to know when to remove the negative comments and when not.Previous research that focus on review variance do not distinguish between existing product and new product and the conclusions are not consistent.Difference between existing product and new product matters because consumers will pay more attention to social value of new product than existing product,which lead to positive effect of high variance of reviews for a new product.We use a field data and two experiments to address this question.First we conduct an empirical study,in which we choose the film as a study context.With the two kinds of data captured from the internet,including the box office of opening weekend and reviews before film released date,we find that the high review variance increases box office.In order to take into account different types of new product,we introduce the new product type(radical vs.incremental)as a moderating variable.We choose two pens of different degrees of innovation as the stimulator in experiment 1,and the result indicates that high variance of new product reviews has positive effect on purchase intention,and the effect is stronger when the new product is radical(vs.incremental).In order to explore the inner mechanism,we conduct experiment 2 and introduce the social value as the mediator.The smart headphones,whose social value are in the intermediate level,are be chosen as the research object.The result shows that perceived social value is the mediator and the new product type have moderating effect on the mediator.This paper's contribution reflected in the following two aspects:First,this paper has a strong theoretical contribution.We put forward some new points of view based on the existing research:on the one hand,we introduce new product types as a moderator,expanding the past product area in the research of reviews variance to new product area,and find that high variance of new product reviews has positive effect on purchase intention,only when the new product has a high innovation.On the other hand,this article introduces the social value perception as the mediator.Most of the previous studies on review variance use the risk perception or the attribution theory to explain its influence on consumer behaviors,but use this new mechanism to explain it.Second,the results of this study have a strong marketing practical significance.According to the conclusion,if the manufacturers have limited budget to develop new products,it's better to concentrate on one factor than to make all factors just so-so.In addition,if the product has less innovation,there is no need to create a dispute,but if the product is highly innovative,to create a variance comment distribution will help to make the product more novel and unique,which will let consumers feel a stronger social value,and then has a higher purchase intention.