ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1579545
Shopping for Others: How Does Inconsistency in Online Reviews Affect Purchase Intentions Differently?
Provisionally accepted
- 1Zaozhuang University, Zaozhuang, China
- 2Quzhou University, Quzhou, China
- 3Harbin University of Commerce, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China
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The product reviews on e-commerce platforms often exhibit inconsistencies in consumer opinions. This raises the question: when consumers purchase products for others, do they place greater importance on inconsistent online reviews? To address this issue, this study explores the impact of online review consistency, social distance, and product type on consumer purchase intentions, based on the theories of psychological distance and construal level. It focuses on examining the moderating roles of social distance and product type in this process. A scenario-based experimental design was employed, with hypotheses tested using analysis of variance and simple effects tests. The study finds that inconsistency in online reviews significantly negatively impacts consumers' purchase intentions, with ambivalent attitudes serving as a mediating factor. Under the influence of social distance matching effects, consumers exhibit lower purchase intentions when purchasing for a distant social relationship (i.e., with a remote social distance) compared to when purchasing for a close social relationship (i.e., with a close social distance), in situations involving inconsistent reviews. However, no significant difference is found in situations with consistent reviews. Product type further moderates the impact of social distance on the effect of online review inconsistency on consumers' purchase intentions. Specifically, when consumers face inconsistent online reviews and the product recipient is a close relationship, their purchase intention for experience products (vs. search products) is lower. In contrast, when the recipient is a distant relationship, the difference in purchase intention is not significant. The findings of this study provide support for the mechanism through which online review inconsistency affects consumer purchase intentions, offering a new perspective for future research on the impact of review inconsistency. Additionally, it provides theoretical support for businesses and companies engaged in online marketing on e-commerce platforms.
Keywords: online review inconsistency, Social Distance, purchase intention, Construal level theory, product type
Received: 19 Feb 2025; Accepted: 26 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Liu, Qiu, Zhao, Wang and Lan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yang Liu, Quzhou University, Quzhou, China
Zeguo Qiu, Harbin University of Commerce, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.