Impact of seller- and buyer-created content on product sales in the electronic commerce platform: the role of informativeness, readability, multimedia richness, and extreme valence

Abstract

This research aims to verify: (1) whether the impacts of the informativeness in seller-created and buyer-created content (product description informativeness/review informativeness) on product sales are complementary or substitutionary. (2) the moderating role of the readability of seller-created and buyercreated content (product description readability/review readability) between the corresponding informativeness (product description informativeness/review informativeness) and product sales. (3) the moderating role of the multimedia richness in seller-created and buyer-created content (product multimedia richness/review multimedia richness) between the corresponding informativeness (product description informativeness/review informativeness) and product sales. (4) the moderating role of valence in buyer-created content (review valence) between the informativeness (review informativeness) in buyer-created content and product sales. To achieve the mentioned goals, we created a conceptual framework combining the dual processing theory (Chaiken and Trope, 1999) and the dual coding theory (Paivio, 1990), through which the hypotheses were proposed. To test the hypotheses in our conceptual framework, we collected data of video game products from Amazon.com using a third-party API service: the Rainforest API. Then, we operationalised the constructs and measured the variables, including creating the lexicons of video game attributes. Finally, we estimated the empirical model using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). This research makes several contributions to the e-commerce literature as well as to practitioners and researchers in this field. On the theoretical side, our empirical findings suggest that review informativeness fully mediates the influence of product description informativeness on product sales, which complements the previous normative model of the interactions between seller-created and buyer-created content (Chen and Xie, 2008). On the practical side, based on the empirical results, we provide concrete guidance for marketers to enhance their strategies on e-commerce platforms. Moreover, as an additional product of the research process, we developed the lexicons of video game attributes, which can help practitioners and researchers to understand and study the attributes of video game products.