Richer forms of online reviews such as videos or follow-on reviews convey ‘additional information and can attract consumers’ attention. However, prior studies focused mostly on the relationship between aggregated online reviews and sales. This paper investigates the impact of online review richness (i.e., reviews containing videos or follow-on reviews) on sales. Leveraging attribute substitution theory, we conjecture that online review richness can provide heuristic cues in the online shopping environment to help consumers make better purchase decisions. Using data from JD.com, we found that reviews containing either videos or follow-on reviews positively affect sales. In addition, different product types can also serve as heuristic cues to replace target cues, which can further affect how different forms of online review richness affect sales. We found that the impact of online review richness on sales is stronger for utilitarian products than for hedonic products, and stronger for negatively commented products than for positively commented products. Moreover, we conducted two online experiments and confirmed that the causal relationship is from online review richness to sales. The research findings offer practical implications for online retailers and constitute one of the first steps toward a better understanding of the relationship between online review richness and sales.

中文翻译：

---

在线评论丰富度如何影响销售：属性替代视角

视频或后续评论等更丰富的在线评论形式传达了“附加信息，可以吸引消费者的注意力”。然而，先前的研究主要集中在聚合在线评论与销售之间的关系上。本文调查了在线评论丰富度（即包含视频或后续评论的评论）对销售的影响。利用属性替代理论，我们推测在线评论丰富度可以在在线购物环境中提供启发式线索，以帮助消费者做出更好的购买决策。使用京东的数据，我们发现包含视频或后续评论的评论对销售产生积极影响。此外，不同的产品类型也可以作为启发式线索来替代目标线索，这可以进一步影响不同形式的在线评论丰富度如何影响销售。我们发现在线评论丰富度对销售的影响对于实用型产品比对享乐型产品的影响更大，对负面评论的产品比正面评论的产品影响更大。此外，我们进行了两次在线实验，并确认因果关系是从在线评论丰富度到销量。研究结果为在线零售商提供了实际意义，并构成了更好地理解在线评论丰富度与销售之间关系的第一步。我们进行了两次在线实验，并确认因果关系是从在线评论丰富度到销量。研究结果为在线零售商提供了实际意义，并构成了更好地理解在线评论丰富度与销售之间关系的第一步。我们进行了两次在线实验，并确认因果关系是从在线评论丰富度到销量。研究结果为在线零售商提供了实际意义，并构成了更好地理解在线评论丰富度与销售之间关系的第一步。