How Does Popularity Information Affect Choices? A Field Experiment
Popularity information is usually thought to reinforce existing sales trends by encour- aging customers to ock to mainstream products with broad appeal. We suggest a countervailing market force: popularity information may bene t niche products with narrow appeal disproportionately, because the...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
INFORMS
2011
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/64921 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1635-3797 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1847-4832 |
| _version_ | 1826202981969690624 |
|---|---|
| author | Tucker, Catherine Elizabeth Zhang, Juanjuan |
| author2 | Sloan School of Management |
| author_facet | Sloan School of Management Tucker, Catherine Elizabeth Zhang, Juanjuan |
| author_sort | Tucker, Catherine Elizabeth |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Popularity information is usually thought to reinforce existing sales trends by encour-
aging customers to
ock to mainstream products with broad appeal. We suggest a
countervailing market force: popularity information may bene t niche products with
narrow appeal disproportionately, because the same level of popularity implies higher
quality for narrow-appeal products than for broad-appeal products. We examine this
hypothesis empirically using eld experiment data from a web site that lists wed-
ding service vendors. Our ndings are consistent with this hypothesis: narrow-appeal
vendors receive more visits than equally popular broad-appeal vendors after the intro-
duction of popularity information. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:28:33Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/64921 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:28:33Z |
| publishDate | 2011 |
| publisher | INFORMS |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/649212022-09-28T08:06:00Z How Does Popularity Information Affect Choices? A Field Experiment Tucker, Catherine Elizabeth Zhang, Juanjuan Sloan School of Management Tucker, Catherine Elizabeth Tucker, Catherine Elizabeth Zhang, Juanjuan Popularity information is usually thought to reinforce existing sales trends by encour- aging customers to ock to mainstream products with broad appeal. We suggest a countervailing market force: popularity information may bene t niche products with narrow appeal disproportionately, because the same level of popularity implies higher quality for narrow-appeal products than for broad-appeal products. We examine this hypothesis empirically using eld experiment data from a web site that lists wed- ding service vendors. Our ndings are consistent with this hypothesis: narrow-appeal vendors receive more visits than equally popular broad-appeal vendors after the intro- duction of popularity information. 2011-07-18T14:35:42Z 2011-07-18T14:35:42Z 2011-05 2011-01 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1526-5501 0025-1909 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/64921 Tucker, Catherine, and Juanjuan Zhang. “How Does Popularity Information Affect Choices? A Field Experiment.” Management Science 57.5 (2011) : 828-842. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1635-3797 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1847-4832 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1110.1312 Management Science Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ application/pdf INFORMS SSRN |
| spellingShingle | Tucker, Catherine Elizabeth Zhang, Juanjuan How Does Popularity Information Affect Choices? A Field Experiment |
| title | How Does Popularity Information Affect Choices? A Field Experiment |
| title_full | How Does Popularity Information Affect Choices? A Field Experiment |
| title_fullStr | How Does Popularity Information Affect Choices? A Field Experiment |
| title_full_unstemmed | How Does Popularity Information Affect Choices? A Field Experiment |
| title_short | How Does Popularity Information Affect Choices? A Field Experiment |
| title_sort | how does popularity information affect choices a field experiment |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/64921 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1635-3797 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1847-4832 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT tuckercatherineelizabeth howdoespopularityinformationaffectchoicesafieldexperiment AT zhangjuanjuan howdoespopularityinformationaffectchoicesafieldexperiment |