Consumer-generated reviews play a decisive role in creating trust and facilitating transactions on digital platforms. However, prior research shows various problems, e.g., only a small number of consumers providing reviews, fake reviews, and inconsistent reviews. We use an experiment in the context of a restaurant booking platform to examine the impact of inconsistent reviews on the duration of consumers’ transaction decisions. In a second experiment, we investigate the relative importance of the review components in the case of inconsistent reviews. Drawing on the dual-process theory and media richness theory, we predict that inconsistent reviews result in a longer time required for consumers’ transaction decisions (H1) and lead to users’ transaction decisions being predominantly based on the qualitative component (H2). Although we do not find general support that inconsistent restaurant reviews negatively determine the duration of transaction decisions, we find evidence that in the case of inconsistent restaurant reviews, the polarity of the qualitative component is crucial for both the duration of the transaction decision and the decision itself.

消费者生成的评论在建立信任和促进数字平台上的交易方面发挥着决定性作用。然而，先前的研究显示出各种问题，例如，只有少数消费者提供评论、虚假评论和评论不一致。我们在餐厅预订平台的背景下使用实验来检查不一致的评论对消费者交易决策持续时间的影响。在第二个实验中，我们调查了在评论不一致的情况下评论组件的相对重要性。借鉴双过程理论和媒体丰富性理论，我们预测不一致的评论会导致消费者交易决策所需的时间更长（H1），并导致用户的交易决策主要基于定性成分（H2）。