Extended Abstract: When Higher Product Reviews Reduce Purchase Likelihood

Product reviews are an essential prepurchase proxy for customers to evaluate anticipated consumption experiences (Chatterjee 2001; Herr et al. 1991). Academic research has investigated the influence of product reviews on perceived quality and purchase intentions (Liu 2006); however, this research offers little guidance as to the effects of product reviews on purchase intentions in the context of bundles. Bundling has developed into a common practice for firms (Brough and Chernev 2012; Harris and Blair 2006), and customers of Amazon.com encounter bundled products nearly every time they shop. Thus, providing a better understanding of how product reviews affect purchase intentions offers potentially valuable theoretical and managerial implications. This research offers an exploratory investigation into whether consumers’ bundle purchase intentions always improve as individual product reviews increase in favorability.