The Relevance of Tactile Information in Online Environments: The Effects of Information Sources on Consumers’ Attitude

This paper aims at analyzing the effects of online information sources on consumers’ attitude. Across three studies, we showed that the description of tactile characteristics of a product provided by a web community (vs. a company website) increases consumer’s attitude because of the higher perceived reliability. However, such attitudinal difference between the two information sources is demonstrated only for products for which tactile information is not diagnostic for product evaluations (i.e., low-touch products). In this case, consumers use the higher perceived reliability characterizing web communities as a heuristic in determining their attitude. For products for which tactile information is diagnostic, and therefore crucial for product evaluations (i.e., high-touch products), the perception of source’s reliability becomes less relevant than the information tactile itself. This research offers theoretical and practical contributions.