Realizing Your Wishes: Alleviating Online Shopping Hesitation via Peer Consumer Review in Social Shopping Context

A large proportion of online consumers tend to abandon their virtual shopping carts instead of finalizing their purchases. In this research in progress paper, we investigate how online shopping hesitation can be alleviated to promote product sales in the context of social shopping. Particularly, we attempt to address the research gap by exploring how online review characteristics (i.e., review credibility, review volume, and review timeliness) mitigate online shopping hesitation and encourage consumers to purchase from their wish-lists. We also explore the potential moderating role of consumer engagement and consumer expertise. In order to validate our research model, we obtained panel data from an online social shopping community and conducted some preliminary analyses. We believe that the results of this study will provide notable insights for both academic researchers and practitioners.