Online Review Helpfulness and Information Overload: The Roles of Text, Image, and Video Elements

Abstract

Online reviews have become an important source of information for consumers, significantly influencing their purchasing decisions. However, the abundance and variety of review formats, especially the mix of text, image, and video elements, can lead to information overload and hinder effective decision-making. This study investigates how different review formats and their combinations affect the perceived helpfulness of reviews. We develop a comprehensive framework to analyze the interactions between text, image, and video elements and their impact on the helpfulness of reviews. We collect and code 8693 online reviews from JingDong Mall Mallacross six product categories, including both experience products and search products, and use multiple regression analysis to test our hypotheses. Our results show that textual review elements significantly increase review helpfulness. However, their effectiveness decreases as the amount of information increases, indicating cognitive overload. Text reviews are more prone to contribute to information overload, while visual elements such as images and videos generally do not contribute to information overload in the coexistence of text, image, and video reviews. Imagery components have a minimal effect on review helpfulness. Video elements are relatively short, which may not be sufficient to convey useful information. We also find that the impact of review formats varies between experience products and search products, and that star ratings moderate the alignment of textual or imagery components with consumer expectations. We conclude that the hybrid of text, image, and video elements in online reviews plays a crucial role in shaping consumer decision-making and information overload. Our research contributes to the literature on online reviews and information overload while providing practical implications for online retailers, review platforms, and consumers to optimize review formats, star ratings, and product types to facilitate informed purchase decisions.