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potential of being chosen, whereas a narrow-appeal product serves a small niche of the
market and consequently has a lower potential of being chosen (Tucker and Zhang, 2011).
Third, a product’s reviews are displayed in text, and the content of reviews could be
anything, depending on reviewers’ experience (Lee, Park, and Han, 2008; Park and Kim,
2008; Park and Lee, 2009). Fourth, a product’s ratings reflect prior consumers’ overall
satisfaction level and could be displayed in a numeric or text format (Sridhar and
Srinivasan, 2012).
In this study, only popularity information related to purchase, i.e., breadth of appeal
and sales volume, are assessed in the context of e-commerce due to the following reasons.
First, breadth of appeal and sales volume reflect real purchase decisions of prior
consumers, whereas reviews and ratings are prior consumers’ opinions about a product but
may not necessarily reveal their real purchase decisions. In this research, we are more
interested in assessing consumers’ direct response, i.e., prior purchase decisions, rather
than opinions or ratings that involve complicated emotions and reasons. Second, the topic
of online consumer reviews or ratings has been widely studied (Bickart and Schindler,
2001; Chevalier and Mayzlin, 2006; Zhu and Zhang, 2010), while research focusing on
the joint effect of market size and sales volume is relatively rare (Tucker and Zhang,
2011). Third, different from the traditional purchasing channels, advanced technology on
the Internet has enabled e-businesses to carry products with a wide range of appeal
(including both broad- and narrow-appeal) and display sales volume next to every
product. This means that breadth of appeal and sales volume information often co-exist
with a product on the Internet. In conclusion, this research intends to focus attention on
the joint effect of breadth of appeal and sales volume in the context of e-commerce.
2.1 Observational Learning and Signaling Effect
Much research has shown that individuals’ behavior is impacted through observing
the behavior of others and the information contained therein (Cai et al., 2008; Chen,
2008). Observational learning can take place as long as the underlying problems faced by
individuals are similar (Zhang, 2010). In particular, it includes the mechanism of learning
from others through direct communications or observing the behaviors of others
(Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer, and Welch, 1992, 1998). In terms of efficacy, learning through
direct communications requires individuals to be close in time, space and/or social
distance, while learning through behavior does not always have such constraints. The
focus of this research is the latter where consumers are unable to physically inspect a