Research On "Home Bias" Phenomenon In Consumer Online Evaluation

The Internet constructs the virtual information network,shortening the distance among the individuals.However,decision-makers still prefer "closer" alternatives when making decisions.This is called "home bias",a common phenomenon in financial and trade area.This study studies consumer's online evaluation behaviors by introducing this concept to E-commerce context.Using transaction data of Taobao in 2012,this study constructs multiple regression models to explore the home bias in the consumer's online evaluation behavior.This paper verifies the existence of home bias by employing empirical analysis.The bias manifests itself in that:During post-purchasing stage,consumers are more inclined to rate local merchants and their scores are significantly higher than those of non-native merchants.This study also takes into consideration the moderation effect of Internet development level and product type.The result indicates that consumers in areas with underdeveloped Internet are more inclined to show "home bias" when rating merchants.In addition,compared to the consumers of search goods,consumers of experience goods show more obvious home bias.This study enriches relevant studies on consumers' online evaluation behavior and applies the concept of "home bias" to the new research context,inspiring new way of thinking for researchers in e-commerce area.Meanwhile,conclusions of our research about "home bias" phenomenon in consumer's online evaluation behaviors also offer practical suggestions for merchants and e-commerce platform...