See How Much We’ve Sold Already! Effects of Displaying Sales and Stock Level Information on Consumers’ Online Product Choices

I'll Follow the Minority: The Effects of Sales Level on Purchase Intention of Self-expressive Products

“…Sales level is an important contextual cue that reflects the consumer interest and market share of a product, and a higher sales level indicates that a product is more desirable in the market (He and Oppewal, 2017 ). Previous studies divided the sales level into higher and lower levels judging by how many people had bought or owned a product (He and Oppewal, 2017 ).…”

“…Sales level is an important contextual cue that reflects the consumer interest and market share of a product, and a higher sales level indicates that a product is more desirable in the market (He and Oppewal, 2017 ). Previous studies divided the sales level into higher and lower levels judging by how many people had bought or owned a product (He and Oppewal, 2017 ). Moreover, most previous studies demonstrated high sales level as a popularity cue, holding that a high sales level means that more people liked the product and had bought or owned the product; that is, the product was more popular in society than another product with a lower sales level (Wu and Lee, 2016 ).…”

“…However, low sales level (namely, low market share) is a signal that the product has an exclusive image (Hellofs and Jacobson, 1999 ), meaning that only a few people own the same product, and so it is closely related to product uniqueness (Tian et al, 2001 ). For what role the sales level plays in consumer purchase, studies argue that it would positively influence people's choices through perceived product popularity (He and Oppewal, 2017 ) and that it would have different influences when the product was purchased for oneself or others (Wu and Lee, 2016 ); in particular, it would be a negative signal concerning a self-expressive product and a positive signal concerning a functional product (Steinhart et al, 2014 ).…”

“…Hence, from a theoretical perspective, the interest of few others elevates product evaluation, as consumers rationalize that the product is not accessible to everyone (Steinhart et al, 2014 ); that is, the owners' self-image of the product is exclusive to some degree. In the present study, sales level is proposed as another important factor leading to exclusivity; a low (vs. high) sales level represents the product's exclusivity (vs. popularity) and scarce (vs. commonplace) image (Hellofs and Jacobson, 1999 ; He and Oppewal, 2017 ), but the perception of self-image exclusivity varies between the consumption of self-expressive and functional products. Because the symbolic characteristics of self-expressive (vs. functional) products match consumers' inner needs of image management and social identity (Whan Park, 1986 ), the consumption of self-expressive (vs. functional) products can bring social or individual meanings to individuals.…”

How Do Social Information Cues Affect Consumers’ Product Choice Experiences? Findings from a Controlled Online Experiment

“…With the increasing popularity of social media applications, several types of social information cues, among them product ratings, likes, or recent consumer activities, have become available [2], [3]. Such social information cues can provide an additional basis from which consumers can infer shopping-relevant characteristics such as the quality or popularity [4]. As products/services often can only be assessed imperfectly online, consumers may be more susceptible to information, which is provided by others or inferred from their behavior when choosing a product/service [5].…”