Online retailers provide social selling cues, such as “39 customers bought this product” or “156 customers viewed our product per hour”, to encourage sales. Revealing the numbers bought has been shown to increase purchase intentions, but what remains unexplored are the ramifications of posting the number of brand-related views or revealing both numbers bought and viewed so customers can determine the views-to-bought ratio. The number of views is much higher than the numbers bought, which customers may anchor on as a signal for product quality; however, a countervailing force is that views are a more ambiguous, hence a less diagnostic, cue. Five experiments revealed that: (1) showing the number of views or bought can, but does not always, increase purchase intentions; (2) revealing the number bought has a monotonically increasing (at diminishing rate) effect on purchase intentions; and (3) views exhibit a concave curvilinear effect in that, beyond a tipping point, increasing the number of views lowers purchase intentions. Given the anchoring effect of the larger views number, if the number of views or the number bought are relatively low, it is better to show the larger views number, but the reverse is true if the respective numbers are both high. Additional insights reveal that it is only advantageous to reveal both numbers if the views-to-bought ratio is lower than 20:1, which would apply to about the top 25% of brand landing pages. These findings were further validated in a choice experiment. Perceptions of product quality mediate the relationship between these social selling cues and purchase intentions; however, this is not the case for perceived skepticism (lack of trust in the information). Revealing these social selling cues is an online retailer’s prerogative; hence, these insights are theoretically interesting and have practical relevance.

在线零售商提供社交销售线索，例如“39 位客户购买了该产品”或“每小时 156 位客户查看了我们的产品”，以鼓励销售。显示购买的数量已被证明可以增加购买意愿，但仍有待探索的是发布与品牌相关的观看次数或同时显示购买和观看的数字以便客户可以确定观看与购买比率的后果。观看次数远高于购买次数，客户可能会将其作为产品质量的信号；然而，一种相反的力量是，观点是一个更加模糊的，因此诊断性较低的线索。五项实验表明：（1）显示观看次数或购买次数可以，但并不总是增加购买意愿；(2) 揭示购买数量对购买意愿有单调递增（递减）的影响；(3) 浏览量表现出凹曲线效应，超过临界点后，增加浏览量会降低购买意愿。考虑到较大的观看次数的锚定效应，如果观看次数或购买的次数相对较少，则显示较大的观看次数，但如果各自的数字都高，则相反。其他见解表明，只有当浏览量与购买量之比低于 20:1 时，同时显示这两个数字才有好处，这适用于品牌登陆页面的前 25%。这些发现在选择实验中得到了进一步验证。对产品质量的看法在这些社交销售线索和购买意向之间起到中介作用；然而，对于感知到的怀疑（对信息缺乏信任），情况并非如此。揭示这些社交销售线索是在线零售商的特权；因此，这些见解在理论上很有趣并且具有实际意义。