Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) has attracted considerable research interest in the past two decades. This paper revisits the impact of eWOM in the context of international business. Using review data scraped from AliExpress, a cross-border e-commerce platform, we show that the impact of online reviews is related to the identity of reviewers. Consumers are most affected by reviews from their home country, followed by reviews from neighboring countries, while they are not affected by reviews from strangers. This confirms the existence of home bias in the consumption of review information. In addition, the bias is more profound among consumers from countries with higher levels of uncertainty avoidance and trust. Our study is among the first to investigate eWOM in digitized international business. By discovering and reporting how consumers react to reviews with different identities, we offer actionable implications for digital platforms to improve the effectiveness of online reviews.
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