The Effect of Negative Popularity on Consumer Preferences

Consumers post online reviews, affecting the evaluation of products and services. Yet, little is known about the importance of the number of reviews for consumer decision making. we conduct an online experiment (n=168) to assess the impact of the average evaluation, a measure of quality, and the number of reviews, a measure of popularity, on consumer behaviour. Results show that consumer preference increases with the number of reviews, independently of the average evaluation being high or low. This novel result is mediated by demographics: young people, and in particular young males, are less affected by popularity, relying more on quality.