Buyer behavior · Meta-analysis
How Online Reviews Affect Purchase Intention: A Meta-analysis Across Contextual and Cultural Factors
Data and Information Management · 2024
Summary
All analyzed review antecedents were significantly related to purchase intention; review valence had the largest reported association (r = 0.563).
For your marketing
Possible founder application
A broad synthesis of review signals and trust factors. Use it to form hypotheses for SaaS proof and reputation pages, while measuring actual qualified conversion rather than intention alone.
Reported result
What the study found
All analyzed review antecedents were significantly related to purchase intention; review valence had the largest reported association (r = 0.563). Individualism, product type, and several study characteristics moderated the results.
Research question
What the authors investigated
How do online-review characteristics relate to purchase intention, and which cultural, product, or study factors moderate those effects?
Design
Meta-analysis of 156 studies, 214 effect sizes, and 69,006 observations.
Sample and setting
Consumer purchase-intention studies involving online reviews across products, platforms, cultures, and research methods.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
The authors note that retrieval omitted unpublished studies and theses, review types and moderators were constrained by data availability, and observed purchase intention does not equal actual purchase behavior.
Research sources
ScienceDirect publisher abstract and article page retrieved with Firecrawl; study count, strongest association, moderators, and limitations were checked.