How do personality characteristics and review features impact persuasion effectiveness

E-commerce is growing rapidly in recent years due to the development of the Internet and the impact of the epidemic. E-commerce platform like Amazon is estimated to expand continuously in the following years. Online product review is one form of digital word of mouth that can be more influential than marketers when customers make purchase decisions. Internet consumers usually spend time and read reviews before making a purchase decision. Previous studies have found a variety of review features that influence consumer evaluation including rating, equivocality and uncertainty, expertise, and argumentation. Customers' WOM evaluation processes are also influenced by customers’ personalities, for example, the need for involvement and level of ambiguity tolerance. However, few studies have examined the interaction effects of review features and personality characteristics. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to examine the persuasive effects of review features and personality characteristics. The focus of this study is on the corresponding interaction effects of agreeableness and conscientiousness personality in the Big Five model and the level of reviewer agreement and level of detail. To answer the research question “How do personality characteristics and review features impact persuasion effectiveness?”, the research built a 2 (level of reviewer agreement and level of detail) by 2 (agreeableness and conscientiousness) online experiment using a survey to determine the perceived review credibility of customers. Manipulation was successful as participants responded differently to reviews of different levels of detail and review agreement. Results show that level of detail and level of reviewer agreement have significant positive effects on consumers’ perceived review credibility. Comparing customers with different personality traits, unfriendly customers are more affected by highly agreed reviews than friendly individuals, and organized customers and careless customers are more affected when the review contains lots of detailed information.