How do consumers in the sharing economy value sharing? Evidence from online reviews

Abstract

With the rapid development of information technology, platform-facilitated collaborative consumption has recently become attractive to consumers. A comparative study of consumers' online review behavior and its impact on overall satisfaction and demand in the accommodation-sharing economy and the hotel industry indicates that consumers' perceptions and behavior change gradually with changes in the level of sharing—from no sharing when staying in hotel rooms to intensive sharing when sharing rooms through collaborative consumption. Online consumer reviews focus on product and service attributes, and the influential factors of customer satisfaction and demand differ when consumers are at different accommodation-sharing levels. Not all attributes described in online reviews influence overall customer satisfaction. With a higher level of sharing, consumers' valuation changes from more to less tangible attributes. Consumers at a higher sharing level care more about social interaction and economic value than consumers at a lower sharing level. Transaction costs, particularly the information search and acquisition costs, play an important role in influencing customer purchase decisions in the sharing economy. Consumers refer to direct information for tangible attributes and to previous consumers' online reviews for intangible attributes to familiarize themselves with details before making purchase decisions. Our study provides implications that help platforms and hosts better target consumer segments with different sharing levels and more effectively utilize online reviews to generate positive electronic word of mouth to enhance consumer demand and the performance of platform economics.