The effects of product usage period in online review on perceived usefulness

Online review, the most common form of electronic word of mouth communication, has become a research topic which has gained importance in recent years due to its effects on consumers' attitudes and behaviors, and firms. In the past studies, since online reviews are hosted in different platforms, there has not been a holistic model proposed for the electronic word of mouth communication. In this study, for the first time in the literature, electronic word of mouth communication process model is presented considering platform dispersion; how and why consumers write online reviews, how firms and platforms manage those reviews; how those reviews affect the attitudes and behaviors of consumers as well as firms' decisions and outputs was explained. Online reviews have significant impacts on the firms' outputs such as sales, stock performance, brand equity, and firm's value so firms often manipulate online reviews on their own websites or on other platforms. Online reviews are losing their credibility today for the consumers who are aware of this manipulation. Therefore, some firms request from their consumers to give some clues when they are writing online reviews to increase credibility and perceived usefulness of those reviews. In the present study, the effects of the presence of product usage period in online review as one of those clues for perceived usefulness have been examined for the first time in the literature. For this purpose, first, 1364 online reviews of women and men sport shoes posted on www.decathlon.com.tr web site were examined and the relationship between product usage period and the number of helpful votes of online reviews was explained by conducting negative binomial regression analysis. After the secondary data analysis, a between subjects factorial experimental design model was developed with 2 (product usage period: present vs. absent) * 2 (valence: positive vs. negative) manipulations, where the dependent variable is the perceived usefulness of online reviews. In addition, the mediating role of the review credibility variable in the relationship between the presence of product usage period in online review and the perceived usefulness was examined. According to the results of the analyses carried out, the presence of product usage period in online review increased the perceived usefulness. However, since the negative online reviews are more effective than the positive ones due to the negativity bias principle, the presence of product usage period in negative online review is less influential on the perceived usefulness as compared to the presence of product usage period in the positive one. Additionally, the presence of product usage period in online review increased perceived usefulness by affecting the credibility of online review.