To alleviate uncertainties prior to purchase, consumers may learn product information through social learning (online ratings) and individual learning (free samples) channels. Drawing on a dataset from CNET.com, we empirically examined how social learning and individual learning impact consumers’ downloads of software samples. We further demonstrated that product types (hedonic or utilitarian) moderate the influences of social learning and individual learning. Specifically, the influence of user ratings is significant for utilitarian software but not for hedonic software. In addition, consumers using utilitarian software prefer both time-limited and function-limited samples while users of hedonic software only prefer time-limited samples.

为了缓解购买前的不确定性，消费者可以通过社交学习（在线评分）和个人学习（免费样品）渠道了解产品信息。利用来自 CNET.com 的数据集，我们实证研究了社会学习和个人学习如何影响消费者下载软件样本。我们进一步证明了产品类型（享乐主义或功利主义）可以调节社会学习和个人学习的影响。具体来说，用户评分的影响对实用软件很重要，但对享乐软件没有影响。此外，使用实用软件的消费者更喜欢限时和功能有限的样品，而享乐软件的用户只喜欢限时样品。