Effects of recommender systems in e-commerce vary by product attributes and review ratings
Recommender systems are used in e-commerce to guide consumers with messages like "People who purchased this item also purchased ..." Past research has shown that these systems affect consumers' choices and generally boost sales, but few studies have examined how product-specific attributes or review ratings influence the effectiveness of such systems. A new study sought to determine how the impact of recommender systems (also called recommenders) is affected by factors such as product type, attributes, and other sources of information about products on retailers' websites. The study found that recommenders increased the number of consumer views of product pages as well as the number of products consumers consider, but that the increase was moderated by product attributes and review ratings.