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產品受歡迎資訊與網路購物：以消費者解讀為干擾變數
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Furthermore, such boost effect of sales volume is observed in both inference
conditions. For the quality evaluation condition, the average percentage of the narrow-
appeal alternative significantly increases from 23% in the congruent condition to 51% in
the incongruent condition (
t
(98) = 3.03,
SD
= .092,
p
= .002). Similarly, for the social
condition, the purchase of the narrow-appeal products also increases significantly from
22% in the congruent condition to 38% in the incongruent condition (
t
(98) = 1.7730,
SD
=
.090,
p
= .004).
Most importantly, comparing the magnitude of increase from the condition of
congruence to incongruence, the percentage of purchasing narrow-appeal products is
increased differently between the two inferences. The quality inference has a significantly
higher magnitude of increase in purchasing the narrow-appeal alternative (51% – 23% =
28%) than the social inference (38% – 22% = 16%;
t
(98) = 1.46,
SD
= .082,
p
= .007).
That is, a higher level of sale volume does boost the purchase of narrow-appeal products,
but the boost effect is significantly stronger for participants in the quality condition than
their counterparts of the social condition. That is, Hypothesis 2 is also supported by the
empirical results.
5. Discussion, Conclusions, Implications, Limitations and Future
Research
5.1 Discussion
Two things should be specially noted for the results of incongruence. First, with the
social inference, the percentage of choosing a broad-appeal product is significantly higher
than that for a narrow-appeal product (Broad-appeal (.62) > Narrow-appeal (.38);
t
(1192)
= 2.91,
SD
= .1682,
p
= .0037), which is a different purchase pattern from the condition
when the quality inference is dominant. Although the sales volume by celebrities of the
narrow-appeal product is higher than that of the broad-appeal product, participants may
still choose to believe that their tastes regarding the low-cost, ordinary food provided in
the scenario are more likely to be similar to the general public in the market than the
celebrities who seem to be superior. Thus, they would rather follow the tastes of general
consumers in the market and purchase the broad-appeal product, disregarding the fact that
the narrow-appeal product has a high sales volume among celebrities. This result
illustrates that the effect of social comparison has been successfully induced, which leads
to a different purchase decision from the quality inference. Second, participants’ average