Abstract:

Based on 4 empirical study, the authors examine the role of online review’s tactile cues in consumer’s purchase intention. Specially, by analyzing the data from taobao, study 1 found that online review’s tactile cues can significantly affect the consumer’s perception of review usefulness; Study 2 further indicated participants in positive online review’s tactile cues group(vs no tactile cues group) report significant higher scores in purchase intention and participants in negative online review’s tactile cues group(vs no tactile cues group) report significant lower scores in purchase intention; The authors focus 2 types of tactile cues in study 3 and find that holistic tactile cues is more effective than concrete tactile cues in increasing purchase intention under search product and concrete tactile cues is more effective than holistic tactile cues in increasing purchase intention under experience product; In study 4,the authors further explore the boundary condition of these effect and predict that temporal distance can disturb the effect by shift consumer’s nature focus.

Key words: tactile cues, product type, temporal distance, purchase intention