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product or communicate with another individual face to face. The uncertainty of the online
environment can increase consumers’ reliance on existing information regarding a product
and on signals from the information therein (Pavlou, Liang, and Xue, 2007; Lim, Sia,
Lee, and Benbasat, 2006; Yoo and Kim, 2012). Therefore, the role of popularity
information becomes apparent because it allows customers to observe prior consumers’
purchase decisions and interpret the signals in between (Simpson, Siguaw, and Cadogan,
2008).
2.2 Popularity Information Signaling Product Quality
Signaling theory took root in the idea of asymmetric information, in which one party
has more or better information than the other (Spence, 2002). In the context of consumer
purchases, a certain party must have more information regarding a product than the other
party, either because they are experienced or have purchased the product. In this condition,
the less-informed party would try to interpret the signal from the better-informed party
with the hope to reveal some pieces of relevant information (Kirmani and Rao, 2000).
Based on the interpretation of the signal, the less-informed party may adjust their purchase
behavior accordingly. Such a phenomenon should be even more obvious in the context of
e-commerce as individuals can not physically inspect the product or consult someone
face-to-face (Brynjolfsson and Smith, 2000; Lynch, Kent, and Srinivasan, 2001). When
they perceive the lack of product information, popularity information could serve as a
signal for potential consumers to observe/interpret what other consumers think and how
they act regarding the product (Chen, 2010; Tucker and Zhang, 2011; Boulding and
Kirmani, 1993).
Research about signaling theory in regard to popularity information is dominant with
the view of product quality (Boulding and Kirmani, 1993). Evidence of quality evaluation
has been documented both in the lab (Anderson and Holt, 1997; Celen and Kariv, 2004;
Chen, 2010; Duflo and Saez, 2003) and in the field (Duan et al., 2009; Duflo, 2006). Most
of these researchers conducted their experiments based on a single source of popularity
information and drew similar results that a high level of popularity (e.g., high sales
volume) conveys a signal of high product quality and positively impacts consumers’
purchase decisions.
Based on the same inference of quality evaluation, Tucker and Zhang’s (2011)
research argued that higher sales volume may not necessarily lead to better sales. Such a
phenomenon becomes especially apparent when jointly considering two types of product