What makes online reviews useful? Evidence from douban.com

With the increasing popularity of online reviews, online reviews have become one of the important reference information for people to make purchasing decisions. However, the large amount of review information increases the cognitive cost of consumers, making it impossible to distinguish between useful information. In this research, we start from the new perspective of “peer-to-peer review” to explore the factors that affect the usefulness of reviews. We use the ELM model as the research framework, using 1359 film reviews on Douban to conduct empirical research. The results of the study show that central and peripheral cue of reviews are significantly correlated with the perceived usefulness of reviews. Furthermore, this study finds peer review is an important screening mechanism. In particular, when there are both central and peripheral clues in the reviews, they will enhance the information decision-making ability. The study makes theoretical contributions to the literature on ELM theory of online review in the third platform like Douban, and provide managerial implication for online platforms and consumers.