Examining the Effect of Reviewer Socioeconomic Status Disclosure on Customers' Purchase Intention

Yuming Liu, Rong Du

OAI: oai:igi-global.com:252157 • DOI: 10.4018/JGIM.2020070102

Image reviews can directly indicate socioeconomic status (SES) of reviewers, which is completely different from text reviews. However, image reviews are under the way to be deeply explored the effect of reviewers' SES disclosures on customer purchase intention. This research uses experimental method to examine social status effect of reviewers in different consumption settings and the underlying mechanism. The findings demonstrate that SES disclosure of reviewers has a significant influence on customers' purchase intentions, indicating that participants have higher purchase intention when they perceive that the products are recommended by high SES reviewers than by low SES reviewers. However, the social status effect occurs when the product is consumed in public but does not occur when the product is consumed in private. This research also finds that participants with high self-presentation concerns would be significantly influenced by reviewers' SES when a product is consumed in public, but participants with low self-presentation concern would not be influenced.

Global Information Technology Computer Science and Information Technology IT Research and Theory