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Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx

www.elsevier.com/locate/jretai

The effect of review images on review helpfulness: A contingency

approach
Raoul V. Kübler a,∗, Lara Lobschat b, Lina Welke a, Hugo van der Meij c
a ESSEC Business School, Cergy, France
b University of Maastricht University, the Netherlands
c Free Researcher

Available online xxx

Abstract
Online retailing is still dominated by information asymmetries, as it often remains difficult for consumers to fully judge the quality of a
product online. Reviews written by customers help to reduce this asymmetry. Helpful reviews have thus become an important tool to drive
online sales. Beside textual information, reviews nowadays also often include images that can further help consumers to better judge products
or services. While online retailers need to invest substantial resources in hosting and incentivizing review images, it remains unclear under
which conditions review images drive (or reduce) review helpfulness and how review image content affects review helpfulness. We rely on
a set of more than 97,000 reviews from Amazon to investigate the contingencies under which review images increase review helpfulness.
Furthermore, we rely on more than 6,000 images in our data set to explore how review image content (i.e., image focus and context fit)
drives review helpfulness. Our results show that online retailers should especially motivate consumers to include images in a review when
the overall rating is extremely positive, when the reviewer has a high reputation, and when the review addresses a hedonic or experience
product. Our image content analysis further shows that images help to increase helpfulness when they show the product in application. This
effect is especially strong in the case of longer reviews.
© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of New York University.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Keywords: User-generated content; Electronic word of mouth; Online product reviews; Image analysis.

Online product reviews have seen a substantial increase
in interest within the last decade. As a valid tool to help
consumers reduce information asymmetries while shopping
online (Swaminathan et al. 2020) and make better-informed
decisions (Forman, Ghose, and Wiesenfeld 2008), they have
been shown to be an effective tool to positively affect
consumer’s decision making (Kübler et al. 2018), drive e-
commerce (Babić Rosario et al. 2016) and improve an online
retailer’s bottom line profits (Chevalier and Mayzlin 2006).
A review’s positive influence on buying behavior depends on
its helpfulness (Topaloglu and Dass 2021). Recent research
points out that review helpfulness is driven by non-textual el-
ements, such as images and videos attached to a review (see
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: kubler@essec.edu (R.V. Kübler).
e.g., Srivastava and Kalro 2019). Consequently, an increasing
proportion of online reviews is posted with user-generated im-
ages, as e-commerce platforms like Alibaba or Amazon start
to leverage the potential of latest developments in smartphone
cameras and provide incentives to users for adding images to
their product reviews.
While initial research has established strong empirical ev-
idence for the average positive impact of review images (and
thus subsequently on buying behavior and customer satisfac-
tion; see e.g., Ceylan, Diehl, and Proserpio 2023), it remains
unclear in which cases review images are especially help-
ful and if review images may in some cases even decrease
helpfulness. The impact of review images on the helpfulness
of the review may thus be contingent on the capability of
these images to reduce information asymmetries by reducing
a customer’s uncertainty about a product, online retailer, or
service.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2023.09.001
0022-4359/© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of New York University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Please cite this article as: R.V. Kübler, L. Lobschat, L. Welke et al., The effect of review images on review helpfulness: A contingency approach, Journal
of Retailing, https:// doi.org/ 10.1016/ j.jretai.2023.09.001
JID: RETAIL
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R.V. Kübler, L. Lobschat, L. Welke et al.
The magnitude of information asymmetry in an online re-
tail setting may depend on various factors. For example, the
fit of a fashion piece is harder to judge for a consumer on-
line than offline. Review images may thus be more helpful
for clothing than for other products when it comes to reduc-
ing information asymmetry (in comparison to e.g., technical
products with more objective product characteristics). Simi-
larly, the consumption purpose may further increase informa-
tion asymmetry and thus affect the impact of review images.
In case of a hedonic product, where consumers are more sub-
jective (compared to utilitarian consumption), consumers may
need more cues and aids when assessing a product and its re-
view. Here again, images may be more helpful than in other
settings to reduce information asymmetry and increase review
helpfulness. In order to grasp the various boundary and con-
tingency conditions associated with review images, it is im-
perative to cultivate a deeper comprehension of the dynamics
between images and other relevant factors in the review pro-
cess. These factors encompass review valence, review length,
reviewer reputation, and product-specific characteristics, all of
which contribute to the influence on review helpfulness.
Furthermore, the impact of review images on review help-
fulness may not only be driven by the context, but also by
what the image displays. To be able to not only advise com-
panies on when to incentivize image inclusion, but also to
provide guidance on what to display, we build on previous re-
search and investigate how image focus (application vs. prod-
uct focus) and image context fit further affect review helpful-
ness and how this is again moderated by review, reviewer,
and product characteristics.
We first test our contingency framework with the help of
a unique data set containing more than 97,000 Amazon re-
views from 46 products to investigate how review-, reviewer-,
and product-related characteristics affect the impact of images
on review helpfulness. Subsequently, we analyze more than
6,000 review images posted within our sample and investigate
how image focus and image context fit – in interaction with
review-, reviewer-, and product-related factors – affect review
helpfulness.
In doing so, we make three important contributions to the
stream of online review research: First, we investigate in a
real e-commerce setting how the impact of review images on
review helpfulness is contingent on review valence, review
length, and reviewer reputation. Second, we investigate, how
the impact of review images differs for search vs. experience
and utilitarian vs. hedonic products as well as products with
varying brand strength. Third, to the best of our knowledge,
our study is the first to explore how image content-specific
factors affect review helpfulness and how this influence is
again contingent on review-, reviewer-, and product-related
factors.
Our analyses deliver important implications for managers.
We find that online retailers should especially motivate (or in-
centivize) the upload of images with reviews that are overly
positive about a product. Similarly, we find that online re-
tailers should include specific incentives for reviewers with
a high reputation to include one or multiple images in their
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reviews and that reviews for hedonic and experience prod-
ucts profit more (than utilitarian and search products) from
review images. Furthermore, online retailers should educate
consumers to show the reviewed product in application (in-
stead of only showing the plain product) when producing an
image for a review. Our results further indicate that low con-
text fit plays a special role in the case of more negative re-
views, while the application focus is more important in case
of longer reviews with more text.
Information asymmetry and the role of images in reviews
In online shopping, the geographical and temporal barri-
ers between retailers and shoppers are lifted as consumers
can buy products and services via the Internet anytime and
anywhere (Dimoka, Hong, and Pavlou 2012). However, even
though research argues that online (vs. offline) shopping al-
lows consumers to easily access information about products
and services (Atefi et al. 2020), it is still also characterized by
information asymmetry – i.e., (online) retailers holding private
information on products and/or services which consumers are
not aware of (Ahearne et al. 2022) – that increases uncer-
tainty and thus may prevent consumers from buying a prod-
uct online. Possible information asymmetry arises from the
retailer being unknown (Kim and Krishnan 2015), its ambigu-
ous level of reliability and credibility, and/or uncertainty about
the product itself (Littler and Melanthiou 2006) or its char-
acteristics (e.g., quality) (Weathers, Sharma, and Wood 2007;
Dimoka, Hong, and Pavlou 2012). In today’s hyperconnected
world, online reviews – as a main source of consumer infor-
mation – serve as important information signals which help
to overcome information asymmetry and reduce uncertainty
about various product characteristics, such as product quality
(Swaminathan et al. 2020). Prior research reveals that through
providing product reviews, online retailers enable consumers
to obtain information on experience attributes of products
which are more difficult to convey via product descriptions
(Hong and Pavlou 2014). Also, given that the information in
reviews comes from a third-party rather than directly from
the retailer, consumers will likely perceive the information
to be more credible (Weathers, Sharma, and Wood 2007).
Through evaluating other consumers’ product experiences as
described in reviews, a consumer is provided with a more
realistic expectation of the product which helps in assessing
the product’s fit with the consumer’s preferences (Hong and
Pavlou 2014). However, the extent to which online reviews
help mitigate information asymmetry depends on the type of
information provided online which includes the review itself
(Dimoka, Hong, and Pavlou 2012) and the type of product
(Manes and Tchetchik 2018).
Online reviews are commonly understood as a specific
form of user-generated content often also categorized as
eWOM (Hennig-Thurau et al. 2003). Many studies have
shown the positive impact of reviews on online consump-
tion (for an overview, see Karimi and Wang 2017), thereby
fostering research interest in what makes reviews more or
less impactful within consumers’ decision-making process.
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Recently, researchers have started to explore the role of im-
agery in online reviews, especially given the superiority of
images in capturing consumers’ attention (Pieters and Wedel
2004) which can be explained by the ease of formation of
both verbal and imaginal codes for pictures relative to words
(see e.g., Unnava and Burnkrant 1991). Previous research
exploring the role of user-generated images1 for online re-
views (for an overview, see Web Appendix A) has predom-
inately looked at how the mere presence of one (or more)
review image(s) impacts review helpfulness (e.g., Wu, Wu,
and Wang 2021), trust in a review, and purchase intentions
(e.g., Zinko et al. 2020). With Li, Chen, and Zhang (2020) and
Topaloglu and Dass (2021) indicating that higher levels of re-
view helpfulness increase consumers’ purchase likelihood and
thus drive online sales, the majority of research on review im-
ages has focused on review helpfulness as the main dependent
variable. In line with Siering, Muntermann, and Rajagopalan
(2018, p. 2), we define review helpfulness as a “measure of
perceived value in the decision-making process [which] re-
sembles the diagnosticity of the online review related to the
reduction of uncertainty.”
Using Amazon product reviews for DVD products,
Lee, Lee, and Baek (2021) find the inclusion of a review im-
age to positively affect review helpfulness. Subsequent studies
have also examined the effects of the number of images ac-
companying a review on its helpfulness (e.g., Cheng and Ho
2015; Srivastava and Kalro 2019) and find review helpfulness
to increase as the number of review images increases.
However, research provides little insights on when re-
view images will be most helpful, i.e., which review-related
and reviewer-related factors foster (or hinder) the effective-
ness of review images in mitigating information asymmetry
(Bigne, Chatzipanagiotou, and Ruiz 2020; Luo et al. 2022).
Filieri, Raguseo, and Vitari (2018) reveal that extreme reviews
on TripAdvisor.com are voted as more helpful when they are
associated with photos of the hotel provided by the reviewer.
On the contrary, Wu, Wu, and Wang (2021) find that the ef-
fect of moderate reviews for a camera on review helpfulness
is strengthened for reviews with (vs. without) review images,
whereas this effect is diminished for extreme reviews. Hence,
given these limited and inconclusive findings, practitioners
need further guidance on conditions for which the effective-
ness of review images will be more pronounced in order to
put appropriate incentive mechanisms in place.
Moreover, findings regarding which products or services
will benefit most from adding review images is still lim-
ited and inconclusive. Findings by Xu, Chen, and San-
thanam (2015) indicate that both experience and search prod-
ucts benefit from the addition of a review image in terms
of review helpfulness with search products benefitting more,
whereas reviews for products on the middle of the search-
experience continuum are perceived as less helpful when a
review image is added. On the other hand, Yang, Wang, and
1 In the following, we will refer to user-generated review images as review
images if not indicated differently.
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Zhao (2023) report that the effect of the amount of review
images on review helpfulness is more pronounced for expe-
rience than for search products. Hence, given these scatter
findings, it is not clear which product type will benefit most
from the addition of review images. Moreover, both stud-
ies only consider the differences between search and experi-
ence products, whereas previous research also indicates sub-
stantial differences in consumers’ search process and need
for information for hedonic versus utilitarian products (e.g.,
Huang, Lurie, and Mitra 2009) and products which differ on
brand strength (e.g., Ho-Dac, Carson, and Moore 2013).
Therefore, especially online retailers still lack knowledge
about which products and reviews are more prone to bene-
fit from the addition of review images (Wu, Wu, and Wang
2021). This is especially crucial information given that a re-
cent industry study shows that 29% of the respondents looked
for reviews with user-generated images before purchasing and
66% of them reported that they are more likely to buy the
product if these photos are presented on the product page
(Bazaarvoice 2021).
In line with signaling theory – which posits that qual-
ity signaling is a solution for information asymmetry
(Akerlof, 1970) – we expect the role of review images (as
information signals) will be more or less pronounced de-
pending on the initial level of information asymmetry asso-
ciated with a product purchase. First, whether review images
will help with mitigating information asymmetry will depend
on review-related factors (signals from the review content)
and reviewer-related factors (e.g., the reviewer’s reputation)
(Siering, Muntermann, and Rajagopalan 2018). Second, we
acknowledge that different products are associated with dif-
ferent levels of information asymmetry given their charac-
teristics, such as whether their attributes can be easily eval-
uated before purchase or not (search vs. experience prod-
ucts), whether the brand can signal credibility to consumers
via brand equity (brand strength), and whether the product is
rather bought for their specific functionality or for the purpose
of pleasure and affective experiences (utilitarian vs. hedonic
products). Therefore, we explore the moderating effects of es-
tablished review-related (i.e., valence and review length) and
reviewer-related factors (reviewer reputation) as well as dif-
ferent characteristics inherent in the reviewed product (i.e.,
product type, product category, and brand strength) on the re-
lationship between review images and review helpfulness. For
an overview, please see our conceptual framework as depicted
in Fig. 1.
Contingency conditions of images in reviews
Images added to a review provide rich information which
might help reduce information asymmetry beyond a review’s
textual content (e.g., Wu, Wu, and Wang 2021). Prior research
shows that when an image is added to a review, consumers’
attention to the review shifts to the image at the expense
of the textual content (Bigne, Chatzipanagiotou, and Ruiz
2020). This is because visual (vs. textual) content is supe-
rior in capturing consumers’ attention, regardless of the size
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R.V. Kübler, L. Lobschat, L. Welke et al.
Fig. 1. Conceptual model.
of the image, and images can be processed more easily than
textual content, which supports the important role of images
for information processing (Pieters and Wedel 2004), and for
forming customer experiences as well as purchase decisions
(Bleier, Harmeling, and Palmatier 2019).
In the context of online reviews, review images can substi-
tute for the lack of haptic information and provide more cer-
tainty when evaluating the performance of a product before
purchase (Peck and Childer 2003). The vividness of the in-
formation should further help in retrieving past performances
by similar products which – in turn – also assists in form-
ing more accurate expectations about a product’s performance
(Weathers, Sharma, and Wood 2007). Moreover, review im-
ages have the ability to better transfer emotions of the review
content, which is likely to further increase the informational
value of a review (Srivastava and Kalro 2019). Prior research
also finds that when a review includes an image, the infor-
mation quality increases, which in turn reduces information
asymmetry and subsequently leads to an increase in overall
helpfulness of a review (Zinko et al. 2021). Hence, in line
with Siering, Muntermann, and Rajagopalan (2018), we pur-
pose2 :
H1 : The helpfulness of a review increases with the number
of review images.
Moderating influence of review-related and reviewer-related
factors on the effect of review images on review helpfulness
With our model, we focus on three main factors identi-
fied by previous research: review valence, review length, and
reviewer reputation (see e.g., Choi and Leon 2020).
2 We provide additional evidence for this hypothesis by also testing the
impact of the presence (vs. absence) of a review image (e.g., Lee, Lee, and
Baek 2021) on the review helpfulness. We find similar results.
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Moderating role of review valence
The valence of a review in terms of its overall rating pro-
vides quick guidance and information to consumers when
purchasing online. With a review rating, reviewers indicate
their product experience with a single indicator. For exam-
ple, Amazon uses a 5-star rating (where 5 stars signify the
best). This single indicator summarizes the overall valence
of a review (Wu, Van der Heijden, and Korfiatis 2011).
In terms of the distribution of reviews, Hu, Zhang, and
Pavlou (2009) show that the majority of ratings lie on the two
extremes of the rating continuum, with Schoenmueller, Net-
zer, and Stahl (2020) finding that 68% of Amazon reviews
can be considered extreme. Extreme (vs. moderate) reviews
provide clear and unambiguous information signals help-
ing to confirm or eliminate product alternatives and hence
reduce information asymmetry (Siering, Muntermann, Ra-
jagopalan 2018). This notion is also supported by research
showing that extreme reviews are perceived as more helpful
than moderate reviews (e.g., Choi and Leon 2020; Wu, Wu,
and Wang 2021).
Review images are highly objective (Zinko et al. 2020)
and hence should be able to increase the overall informa-
tional value of the review by either compensating for in-
sufficient information of the review or by adding support
for the statements made in the review (Wu, Wu, and Wang
2021). Hence, we expect that the effect of review images
will be more pronounced for moderate (vs. extreme) re-
views as these types of reviews are characterized by a high
amount of ambiguous information which – in turn – leads
to higher information asymmetry. In extreme reviews, on
the other hand, clear and unambiguous statements are al-
ready made which is why review images might not add
much diagnostic value. Also, given consumers’ preference
for extreme reviews (e.g., Wu, Wu, and Wang, 2021), they
should consider additional diagnostic cues (such as a re-
view image) to be less important to evaluate review help-
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fulness due to the confirmation bias (Choi 2022). Thus, we
propose:
H2a: The positive effect of review images on review help-
fulness will be weakened for extreme (positive and negative)
reviews.
Even though consumers prefer extreme over moderate re-
views (irrespective of their valence), prior research also re-
veals the existence of a context-dependent negativity bias
(Wu 2013). More specifically, consumers rate negative (vs.
positive) reviews as more helpful when the overall valence
of consumers’ opinions is positive. On the other hand, if the
overall valence is negative, consumers rate positive reviews
as more helpful. This supports the notion that an extreme
negative review has higher diagnostic value for a consumer
and hence helps with reducing information asymmetry if the
majority of other reviews is positive. Schoenmueller, Netzer,
and Stahl (2020) show that almost all platforms allowing con-
sumers to publish online reviews exhibit an imbalance towards
positive reviews and that this is even more pronounced for
commercial platforms such as Amazon.
Given this negativity bias, consumers likely perceive an
extreme negative review as more credible and are more ac-
cepting of the review information which – in turn – will make
diagnostic cues, such as review images, less impactful given
the lower information asymmetry. On the other hand, in case
of overly positive reviews, information asymmetry is expected
to be larger as readers may question the reliability and credi-
bility of such reviews. For them, information asymmetry may
thus be best reduced by showing visual evidence. Images may
engender confidence and increase the credibility of an ex-
tremely positive review, as they show the product in use in
a real setting. Review images will thus increase trust for ex-
tremely positive reviews and, in turn, enhance the review’s
helpfulness.
Thus, we expect the moderating effect of review valence
to be stronger for extreme positive reviews than for extreme
negative reviews. In sum, we propose:
H2b: The moderating effect of extreme reviews is stronger
for extreme positive (vs. extreme negative) reviews.
Moderating role of review length
Previous research suggests a positive relationship between
review length and helpfulness (Forman, Ghose, and Wiesen-
feld 2008; Karimi and Wang 2017; Mudambi and Schuff
2010). This positive relationship has also been confirmed by
a recent meta-analysis (Hong et al. 2017). Longer reviews
include more details, enhance the review content, and hence
help in reducing information asymmetry.
However, research has not provided conclusive evidence
for the relative importance of visual (here: review images)
and verbal (here: review length) information in online reviews
for the evaluation of review helpfulness. Contrary to popular
believe, research has shown that visual information is only
dominant in cases where the visual information conveys dif-
ferent messages from the verbal information. When the same
message is conveyed via visual and verbal information, the in-
ferences based on visual signals are weaker than those based
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on verbal signals due to higher uncertainty associated with
the visual information (Smith, 1991). This notion is also sup-
ported by Kim and Lennon (2008) who show that the effect of
visual information on consumers’ cognitive attitudes and pur-
chase intentions is only significant when the amount of verbal
information is low and hence initial information asymmetry is
high. In the context of online reviews, Zinko et al. (2020) find
that trust and purchase intention increase with the addition of
review images for all reviews independent of their information
quality (i.e., review length). However, reviews with low tex-
tual information (i.e., short reviews) benefited the most from
the addition of review images. Thus, we suggest that the ef-
fect of review images will be more pronounced for shorter
reviews which contain only a limited amount of information
and hence review images can help with decreasing informa-
tion asymmetry by compensating for the lack of sufficient
information. On the other hand, review images might have
only marginal or even no diagnostic value for long reviews
where information asymmetry is already relatively low. On
the contrary, the combination of extensive verbal and visual
information might even lead to information overload (Hu and
Krishen 2019). Therefore, we hypothesize:
H3: The positive effect of review images on review help-
fulness is weakened by review length.
The moderating role of reviewer reputation
Some consumers may question the expertise of a reviewer
or give less weight to other people’s experiences as expressed
in reviews which is associated with higher information asym-
metry. Previous research has shown that source credibility
serves as a crucial signal in consumers’ evaluation of review
helpfulness (e.g., Ravula, Jha, and Biswas 2022) and even-
tually their decision whether to adopt the information pre-
sented in the review (Racherla and Friske 2012) because of
its ability to reduce information asymmetry. To judge a re-
viewer’s assessment and reduce potential uncertainties about
his/her credibility, consumers also draw upon social factors
to determine the trustworthiness of the reviewer and subse-
quently the helpfulness of a review (Cheng and Ho 2015).
More specifically, a reviewer’s reputation within the online
review community as determined by external recognition, i.e.,
the amount of reviewer badges received, has also been shown
to create reviewer credibility and hence positively impact re-
view helpfulness (Racherla and Friske 2012; for results from
a meta-analysis, please see: Hong et al. 2017).
However, in the presence of two information signals, i.e.,
reviewer badges and review images, how do these types of
information relate to one another? When a less reputable re-
viewer (without a contribution badge) publishes a review, this
review will be associated with a higher information asymme-
try because of the lack of credibility of the reviewer. In this
case, review images may help consumers to assess the subjec-
tivity or objectivity of the reviewer and the review itself. Such
visual cues may thus aid consumers in better interpreting the
specific content of a review (Lenzner, Schnotz, and Müller
2013) and the reviewer’s expertise (Karimi and Wang 2017)
in favor of review helpfulness. However, when a reviewer’s
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R.V. Kübler, L. Lobschat, L. Welke et al.
reputation is relatively high, the information asymmetry asso-
ciated with the review should be lower which is why review
images will have lesser diagnostic value for the consumer.
Thus, we expect that the role of review images will decrease
with an increase in reviewer reputation.
H4: The positive effect of review images on review help-
fulness will be weakened by reviewer reputation.
Moderating influence of product-related characteristics on
the effect of review images on review helpfulness
Information asymmetry in online shopping varies across
different product categories (Hsieh, Chiu, and Chiang 2005).
Accordingly, the importance of reviews and review images
may also vary. Moreover, prior research indicates that the
role of reviews also differs for strong and weak brands (Ho-
Dac, Carson, and Moore 2013), which will likely also extend
to review images. Therefore, we also explore how the role
of review images differs for different products characteristics
(i.e., search vs. experience products, hedonic vs. utilitarian
products, and strong vs. weak brands).
The moderating role of product type (search vs. experience)
Previous research indicates that information asymmetry
largely varies across two main product categories: search
products and experience products. According to Park and
Park (2013), especially online, pre-purchase uncertainty is
greater for experience products than for search products which
contributes to a higher level of information asymmetry for
experience products. After all, experience products need to
be seen, smelled, tasted, tried, or touched to assess their
quality (Peterson, Balasubramanian, and Bronnenberg 1997)
whereas search products can be evaluated more easily based
on the online information provided by the seller. In support
of this, multiple studies have shown that product reviews
are more helpful for experience than search products (e.g.,
Huang, Lurie, and Mitra 2009).
The different degrees of information asymmetry associated
with search (low) vs. experience (high) products (Hsieh, Chiu,
and Chiang 2005) also determine the importance of visual
information, such as review images. Images help to assess
experience attributes of products which are more difficult to
evaluate via textual information which in turn reduce informa-
tion asymmetry for experience products (Xu, Chen, and San-
thanam 2015). For search products, sensory information (such
as in the form of review images) is less important given that
these types of products can easily be evaluated based on ver-
bal information (Weathers, Sharma, and Wood 2007). Hence,
we propose that:
H5: Review images have a stronger positive effect on re-
view helpfulness for experience than search products.
The moderating role of product category (utilitarian vs.
hedonic)
Utilitarian products are bought for their functionality
following predominately cognitive information processing
(Pan and Zhang 2011). Hedonic products (e.g., luxury
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watches, fine chocolate) are “products whose consumption is
primarily characterized by an affective and sensory experience
of aesthetic or sensual pleasure, fantasy, and fun” (Dhar and
Wertenbroch 2000, p. 61). Hence, for the latter category,
evaluations of products are personal and involve emotions
(Moore 2015). Also, review content for hedonic (vs. utilitar-
ian) products is less factual and less objective but rather for-
mulated as personal consumption experiences (Moore (2015).
These differences in evaluation criteria as well as differences
in review content lead to decreased efficacy in the evaluation
of hedonic products pre-purchase and – in turn – a higher in-
formation asymmetry for these types of products. As a con-
sequence, reviews for hedonic (vs. utilitarian) products are
perceived as relatively less helpful in line with a negative
category effect (Pan and Zhang 2011).
Given that review images are superior in conveying af-
fective experiences in a vivid manner (Kim and Lennon
2008) and help imagine using the product in the future
(Roggeveen et al. 2015), they might be especially suitable
to complement the information in the written review for he-
donic products and hence help reducing information asymme-
try. Moreover, review images might be able to help consumers
evaluate to which degree the presented personal experience is
in line with their own expectations (Hong and Pavlou 2014).
In addition, as images can substitute for seeing products in
real life, review images are likely to be most helpful for prod-
ucts that benefit from sensory experiences (Lin, Lu, and Wu
2012). Thus, we argue that the review images strengthen the
effect of product reviews for hedonic (vs. experience) prod-
ucts on helpfulness. Thus:
H6: Review images have a stronger positive effect on re-
view helpfulness for hedonic than utilitarian products.
The moderating role of brand strength
Conceptually, strong brands are quality indicators that help
reduce information asymmetry (Hazée, Van Vaerenbergh, and
Armirotto 2017) and build trust (Benedicktus et al. 2010). In
line with this, Ho-Dac, Carson, and Moore (2013) find that
online reviews matter less for strong brands than for weak
brands. Thus, a review’s contribution to reducing informa-
tion asymmetry is lesser for stronger brands than for weaker
brands. As such, we postulate that weaker brands need to rely
more on reviews than stronger brands to reduce seller uncer-
tainty given that for these types of brands the initial informa-
tion asymmetry is higher (Manes and Tchetchik 2018), and
therefore the impact of images in a review will be stronger.
Thus:
H7: Review images have a stronger positive effect on re-
view helpfulness for weak than strong brands.
Data
We test our conceptual model with the help of a unique
data set of online reviews from Amazon. Amazon incorpo-
rates more than 250 million reviews from over 213 million
customers for 353 million products (LandingCube 2022), thus
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R.V. Kübler, L. Lobschat, L. Welke et al.
Table 1
Choice of product types and categories.
Category Search Experience Hedonic Utilitarian
DVD Player X X
Digital Photo Frame X X
Smartphone X X
Computer Adapter X X
Printer X X
Electric Toothbrush X X
Mascara X X
Lipstick X X
Party Dress X X
Microwave Oven X X
Vacuum Cleaner X X
Razor X X
providing enough representative reviews and review helpful-
ness votes for a variety of products and brands.
We obtain all reviews in our sample with the help of a
self-coded R-based web crawler that extracts relevant review
content and images via the rvest package (Wickham 2016)
as described in Yildirim and Kübler (2023, pp. 147-156). To
identify suitable reviews to test the different contingencies of
our conceptual model, we conduct multiple pretests.
Choice of products
To be able to test the product-related contingencies of
our conceptual framework, we screen previous marketing re-
search studies for products classified as search vs. experi-
ence or hedonic vs. utilitarian products. We then conduct
a pretest and ask a sample of 20 undergraduate students to
rate the identified 30 products as hedonic vs. utilitarian and
search vs. experience on scales provided by Wakefield and
Inman (2003) and Weathers, Sharma, and Wood (2007), re-
spectively. Afterwards, we choose the three top classified
products per type and category (see Table 1). Validating
our choice, previous research has also used these product
types and categories to represent search vs. experience (e.g.,
Gao et al. 2012; Huang, Lurie, and Mitra 2009) and hedo-
nic vs. utilitarian products (e.g., Pallas, Mittal, and Groening
2014).
Choice of brands and brand strength measurement
To select appropriate brands for our analysis, we use an
exploratory approach. In the first step, we screen Amazon
for brands that offer the selected products. Subsequently, to
classify the brands as strong vs. weak, we rely on the Best
Global Brands report 2018 (the year before data crawling)
from Interbrand (2018) which ranks brands by their strength.
To represent a strong brand in our sample, the brand needs
to be in the Top 100 of the report. For all remaining and
non-listed brands, we conduct a pretest with 30 undergraduate
students to rate brand strength. Based on the results, we select
the brands rated as the least strong for each product. Since the
weak brands have fewer reviews than the strong brands, we
choose multiple weak brands to obtain an equivalent number
7
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Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
of review observations for both strong and weak brands. Web
Appendix B provides an overview of the final product types
and categories with the brand categorizations, including the
sample composition.
Data collection and variable operationalization
For each product, we obtain all reviews posted on Ama-
zon before April 2019, which results in 97,997 reviews in
total. For each review, we collect the review text, star rat-
ing, reviewer badges, number of helpful votes, and all im-
ages included in the review. We also collect the review date
and include the age of the review into our model to con-
trol for Amazon’s ranking algorithm which displays reviews
that have received more helpful votes more prominently than
other reviews. Hence, newer reviews stay farther down the
page and have less chance of receiving votes (Salehan and
Kim 2016). Further, a visual inspection of the variable distri-
butions as well as the corresponding box plots indicates that
both review helpfulness and the number of images face outlier
problems. We separate outliers from the data set by relying
on the 1.5 interquartile rule of Backhaus et al. (2021) and
drop 50 reviews for which either the number of images or
the number of helpful votes exceeds the rule, resulting in a
final data set consisting of 97,947 reviews including 6,060 im-
ages. Table 2 provides an overview of the variables derived
from the collected data, their operationalization and descrip-
tive statistics, including correlations across all numerical vari-
ables. The distributions of all variables are available in Web
Appendix C.
Analysis
Our analytical approach is guided by the specific needs of
our data set. In line with previous research on review help-
fulness (e.g., Mudambi and Schuff 2010), we face two major
challenges: (1) data censorship and (2) selection bias.
Censorship origins from the particular format of review
helpfulness. The variable is bound in its range as it cannot fall
below the limit of zero. Although readers might find a review
not helpful at all, they are not able to downvote a review. In
addition, we cannot observe if a review’s lack of helpfulness
votes (i.e., a zero score) is due to the characteristics of the
review or other (often unobservable) factors such as time,
reader characteristics, or category competition.
Furthermore, our data may be prone to a selection bias
that origins from the fact that not every reader actively rates
a review as helpful. A selection bias might also arise because
of the large number of reviews on the platform and because
readers can hardly read all the reviews of a product. As such,
we cannot determine whether a reader not voting a review as
helpful really finds the review not helpful or whether he or
she has not read it.
We address these two modeling challenges by following
established research in the field of review helpfulness re-
search (Srivastava and Kalro 2019) and apply a Tobit regres-
sion model to test our conceptual model.
 R.V. Kübler, L. Lobschat, L. Welke et al.
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Table 2
Variable operationalization and descriptive statistics.

Variable Type Definition Coding Descriptive statistics Correlations

Min Max Mean SD RL RR RA NI

Review DV Number of times a review has been Numerical 0 480.00 1.74 13.30 0.38∗∗ 0.09∗∗ 0.14∗∗ 0.17∗∗
Helpfulness evaluated as being helpful
(RH) (Mudambi and Schuff 2010)
Review and Reviewer Characteristics
Extreme IV Very high (5/5-star) product rating Categorical (0 = no extreme 0 1 0.57
Positive on Amazon’s rating scale review positivity;
Reviews (Mudambi and Schuff 2010) 1 = extreme review
positivity)

ARTICLE IN PRESS
Extreme IV Very low (1/5-star) product rating Categorical (0 = no extreme 0 1 0.15
Negative on Amazon’s rating scale review negativity;
Reviews (Mudambi and Schuff 2010) 1 = extreme review
negativity)
Review IV Number of words per review Numerical 0 2843.00 48.69 72.24 0.12∗∗ 0.08∗∗ 0.09∗∗
Length (RL) (Singh et al. 2017)
Reviewer IV Number of badges a reviewer has Numerical 0 3.00 0.05 0.23 -0.10∗∗ 0.00
Reputation received (Liu and Park 2015;
8

(RR) Ngo-Ye and Sinha 2014)

Product Characteristics 0 1 0.47
Search vs. IV Search versus experience product Categorical
Experience (0 = experience;
Product 1 = search)
Hedonic vs. IV Hedonic versus utilitarian product Categorical (0 = hedonic; 0 1 0.56
Utilitarian 1 = utilitarian)
Product
Brand IV Brand strength Categorical 0 1 0.47
Strength (0 = weak; 1 = strong)
Review
Images
Number of IV Number of images included in a Numerical 0 9.00 0.06 0.37
Images (NI) review
Controls 0 4050.00 646.60 511.09 -0.04∗∗

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Review Age CV Difference in days between the date Numerical

[m5+;September 25, 2023;11:20]

(RA) of posting and the date of scraping
the review (Hong et al. 2017;
Liu and Park 2015)
∗p < .01.
∗∗ p < .0001. Note: DV = Dependent Variable; IV = Independent Variable; CV = Control Variable.
JID: RETAIL
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R.V. Kübler, L. Lobschat, L. Welke et al.
Following the standard notation of Tobit models
(Greene 2019, pp. 933) we define our censored dependent
variable ReviewH el p f ul nessi∗ as
ReviewH el p f ul nessi∗ = max (ReviewH el p f ul nessi , ci )
where ReviewH el p f ul nessi expresses the observed number
of helpfulness votes for review i and ci represents the corre-
sponding censoring threshold in review i (which is 0).
We then model the latent variable ReviewH el p f ul nessi∗ as
a linear function of the independent variables
 
ReviewH el p f ul nessi∗ = β∗xi + εi with εi ∼ N 0, σ 2 (2)
where β is a vector with the regression coefficients of the
independent variables for observation i assembled in vector
xi , and εi is a normally distributed error term with mean 0
and variance σ 2 .
Finally, we assume that the observed value of
ReviewH el p f ul nessi is equal to ReviewH el p f ul nessi∗ if
ReviewH el p f ul nessi∗ is larger than or equal to ci (0), and
equal to ci (0) if ReviewH el p f ul nessi∗ is smaller than ci (0),
as shown in Eq. (3).
ReviewH el p f ul nessi
 Our results also provide support for H2b. More specifi-
ReviewH el p f ul nessi∗ i f ReviewH el p f ul nessi∗ ≥ 0
= (3)
0 i f ReviewH el p f ul nessi∗ < 0
We can combine these equations and then finally obtain
our model as depicted in Eq. (4). To enhance the inter-
pretability of our contingency effects, all numerical indepen-
dent variables are mean centered following the approach of
Cohen et al. (2003).
ReviewH el p f ul nessi∗
= β0 + β1 ∗ N umI magesi
+ β2 ∗ E xt Posit ivei + β3 ∗ E xt N egat ivei
+ β4 ∗ RevLengthi + β5 ∗ Reput at ioni
+β6 ∗ E x perienceProdi + β7 ∗ H edonicProdi
+ β8 ∗ Br andSt rengt hi
+ β9 ∗ RevAgei + β10 ∗ N umI magesi ∗ E xt Posit ivei
+ β11 ∗ N umI magesi ∗ E xt N egat ivei
+β12 ∗ N umI magesi ∗ RevLengthi
+ β13 ∗ N umI magesi ∗ Reput at ioni
+ β14 ∗ N umI magesi ∗ E x perienceProdi
+ β15 ∗ N umI magesi ∗ H edonicProdi
+ β16 ∗ N umI magesi ∗ Br andSt rengt hi
 
+ εi with εi ∼ N 0, σ 2
Results
Table 3 shows the results of our study. To demonstrate
robustness, we present the results of two model variations.
The main model includes only main effects, while the model
with interactions presents the results of the model depicted in
Eq. (4).
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The impact of images on review helpfulness
Both of our models find a positive and significant estimate
for the number of review images (ß1 = 11.86, p < 0.001).
(1)
This suggests that – in line with previous research (e.g., Sri-
vastava and Kalro 2019) – adding one or more images to
an average review generally leads to higher levels of review
helpfulness. Thus, we can confirm H1.
The moderating effect of review valence
In case of extremely negative reviews, our model results
in a significant and negative estimate for the interaction term
with review images (ß11 = -1.92, p < 0.05). Consistent with
H2a, this indicates that – in contrast to moderate reviews –
more negative reviews benefit less from review images.
In case of extremely positive reviews, we find a positive
and highly significant interaction (ß10 = 4.47, p < 0.001), in-
dicating that overly positive reviews benefit more from review
images than moderate reviews. We can thus only partially
confirm H2a.
cally, the coefficient of the interaction between the number
of review images and extreme positive reviews (ß10 = 4.47,
p < 0.001) is larger than the corresponding coefficient for
extreme negative reviews (ß11 = -1.92, p < 0.05). Hence, in
line with our expectations, the moderating effect of review ex-
tremity is stronger for extreme positive than extreme negative
reviews.
The moderating effect of review- and reviewer-related
characteristics
We obtain robust empirical validation for H3. The asso-
ciated interaction coefficient concerning the relationship be-
tween the number of review images and the length of the re-
view is both significant and negative (ß12 = -.01, p < 0.001).
This is line with our initial assumption that an increasing re-
view length dampens the positive effect of review images on
helpfulness.
In case of H4, where we expected that high reviewer rep-
utation would dampen the effect of review images on review
helpfulness, we find a strong and significant interaction. This
effect, however, is positive (ß13 = 7.28, p < 0.001) and thus
opposite to the effect suggested by our conceptual model so
(4)
that we have to reject H4. Hence, contrary to our expectations,
a reviewer’s reputation strengthens the effect from review im-
ages on review helpfulness. Thus, it seems that even though
review images are associated with a decrease in information
asymmetry due to their ability to complement review infor-
mation and/or add additional diagnostic value, they become
even more helpful when coming from a reputable reviewer
who also increases the credibility of the images (Pan and
Zhang 2011).
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Table 3
Results - contingency conditions of images in reviews.

Main Model Model with Interactions

Intercept -24.775 (.295)∗∗∗ -24.972 (.297)∗∗∗
Effect of Images
Number of Images 11.480 (.237)∗∗∗ 11.863 (.511)∗∗∗
Contingencies
Extreme Positive Reviews × Number of Images 4.470 (.528)∗∗∗
Extreme Negative Reviews × Number of Images -1.916 (.770)∗
Review Length × Number of Images -.011 (.001)∗∗∗
Reviewer Reputation × Number of Images 7.276 (.608)∗∗∗
Experience Product × Number of Images 1.078 (.532)∗
Hedonic Product × Number of Images 3.034 (.488)∗∗∗
Brand Strength × Number of Images -.989 (.499)∗
Main Effects
Extreme Positive Reviews -2.577 (.251)∗∗∗ -2.765 (.252)∗∗∗
Extreme Negative Reviews 11.531 (.316)∗∗∗ 11.575 (.316)∗∗∗
Review Length .103 (.001)∗∗∗ .104 (.001)∗∗∗
Reviewer Experience 1.280 (.432)∗∗ .638 (.435)
Experience Product -.628 (.217)∗∗ -.766 (.217)∗∗∗
Hedonic Product -3.793 (.222)∗∗∗ -4.041 (.223)∗∗∗
Brand Strength 2.520 (.216)∗∗∗ 2.575 (.216)∗∗∗
Review Age .007 (.000)∗∗∗ .007 (.000)∗∗∗
Log() 3.214 (.004)∗∗∗ 3.212 (.004)∗∗∗
Log Likelihood -153760.816 -153588.139
Number of Observations 97,947 97,947
∗∗∗ p < 0.001.
∗∗ p < 0.01.
∗ p < 0.05.

The moderating effect of product characteristics
For H5, we expected review images to have a stronger pos-
itive effect on review helpfulness for experience (vs. search)
products. We find support for this hypothesis as the interaction
between review images and experience (vs. search) products
is positive and significant (ß14 = 1.08, p < 0.05).
In addition, our results provide support for H6, as the inter-
action between review images and the product being hedonic
(vs. utilitarian) is significant and positive (ß15 = 3.03, p <
0.001). Thus, in line with our arguments, although reviews for
hedonic (vs. utilitarian) products are in general perceived as
less helpful (ß7 = -4.04, p < 0.001), they benefit more from
the inclusion of images compared to utilitarian products.
Further, in H7 we address the potential contingency of the
effect of review images on brand strength. The model reveals
that the interaction between brand strength and review images
is negative and significant (ß17 = -.99, p < 0.05), in support
of H7. This result shows that especially weaker brands benefit
from the addition of images to reviews and that review images
help mitigate the, on average, fewer review helpfulness votes
reviews for weak brands receive, as indicated by the main
effect from brand strength on review helpfulness (ß8 = 2.58,
p < 0.001).
Follow-up study: the impact of image content on review
helpfulness
Up to this point, our study underlines that review helpful-
ness increases with the number of images added to a review
and highlights conditions in which images are of particular
importance to increase the helpfulness of a review.
Still, beyond the “mere presence effect” (Li and Xie 2020)
of review images, prior research has also shown that what
is depicted in images influences consumers’ evaluation of
the respective image and their (behavioral) responses (e.g.,
Biehal, Stephens, and Curio 1992; Zhang and Luo 2023).
Given that user-generated images are, by definition, not taken
by professionals, the chosen review images might differ on
the degree to which they present information and content rel-
evant to the reviewed product and hence the review itself.
Consequently, it is essential to better understand how image
content affects review helpfulness.
For this purpose, we conduct a follow-up study based on
the subset of reviews from our data set that contain images.
The filtered sample contains 6,060 images from 3,784 re-
views. Next to the variables already included in our main
study, we additionally create two different variables capturing
image content, i.e., image focus and context fit.
First, image focus indicates whether the image shows the
product itself (e.g., pack shot) or its application. When creat-
ing a review, consumers can decide whether to add an image
showing only the product or the product in use. We assume
– given that most online stores already provide consumers
with detailed product images – that those images provide lit-
tle new information compared to images showing the product
in application and thus do not help (much) to overcome in-
formation asymmetry. Images with an application focus, by
contrast, can also help consumers objectively assess the writ-
ten content of a review. We construct our image focus vari-

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R.V. Kübler, L. Lobschat, L. Welke et al.
Fig. 2. Examples of images content variables.
able based on the image clustering approach introduced by
Klostermann et al. (2018) which groups images based on al-
gorithmically detected objects which are depicted and their
probabilities.
Second, context fit captures how well the objects displayed
in an image fit the reviewed product. Recent research by
Ceylan, Diehl, and Proserpio (2023) highlights the impor-
tance of similarity between textual information in a review
and the associated review image to increase consumers’ ease
of information processing and – in turn – also enhance review
helpfulness. In a similar vein, we argue that the higher the fit
of the objects depicted in a review image with the reviewed
product (i.e., higher context fit), the lower the information
asymmetry, and the easier it is for consumers to process the
review and hence perceive it as more helpful. We calculate
the context fit based on the average Euclidean distance of
the top 20 classified objects in each image to the reviewed
product with the help of a pre-trained Global Vectors (GloVe)
model containing word embeddings (Pennington, Socher, and
Manning 2014). Word embeddings are numerical representa-
tions of words in a vector space and thus allow to compute
the distance between words. Similar words will have smaller
distances between their embeddings, i.e., higher context fit,
while more different words will have larger distances, i.e.,
lower context fit. Fig. 2 shows examples of images with a
product (coded as 0) vs. application (coded as 1) focus and
with a low vs. high context fit. In our subset, 59% of the
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[m5+;September 25, 2023;11:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
images have an application focus and the mean context fit
measured on a scale from 0 to 1 is 0.51. Web Appendix
D provides more information about the operationalization of
both image content variables.
In addition, we take into account that some reviews contain
multiple images. Therefore, we also control for the confound-
ing effects arising from other images included in the review,
coded as the number of all other images contained in the re-
view next to the observed image. Again, we also control for
review age and estimate a Tobit regression model with mean
centered variables.
Table 4 provides the results of the image content study. We
again report the main effects model together with the model
including all interaction effects among the content measures
and the contingency factors to demonstrate the robustness of
our findings. In the following, we discuss the findings of the
model including interactions.
First, similar to our study investigating the impact of the
number of images in a review, we find that adding additional
images (ß = 15.75, p < 0.001) increases review helpfulness.
Effects from image focus and context fit
In line with our assumption, we find a significant and pos-
itive effect (ß = 23.06, p < 0.01) of image focus on review
helpfulness, indicating that images with an application focus
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Table 4
Results – impact of image content on review helpfulness.

Main Model Model with Interactions

Intercept -51.758 (4.853)∗∗∗ -60.005 (6.414)∗∗∗
Effect of Image Content
Image Focus 7.847 (3.862)∗ 23.057 (8.356)∗∗
Context Fit 9.682 (10.535) -12.103 (22.375)
Contingencies
Extreme Positive Reviews × Context Fit -7.284 (22.482)
Extreme Negative Reviews × Context Fit -94.093 (32.666)∗∗
Review Length × Context Fit -.227 (.053)∗∗∗
Experience Product × Context Fit -17.291 (25.284)
Hedonic Product × Context Fit -43.041 (22.153)
Brand Strength × Context Fit 53.809 (20.738)∗∗
Extreme Positive Reviews × Image Focus -11.175 (8.725)
Extreme Negative Reviews × Image Focus -13.333 (12.175)
Review Length × Image Focus .098 (.021)∗∗∗
Experience Product × Image Focus -3.825 (9.237)
Hedonic Product × Image Focus 11.912 (8.411)
Brand Strength × Image Focus -7.583 (7.880)
Other Images × Image Focus -5.152 (1.800)∗∗
Main Effects
Extreme Positive Reviews 19.167 (4.233)∗∗∗ 25.231 (6.618)∗∗∗
Extreme Negative Reviews 52.304 (5.942)∗∗∗ 53.680 (8.092)∗∗∗
Review Length .278 (.011)∗∗∗ .228 (.015)∗∗∗
Reviewer Experience 8.569 (5.787) 9.494 (5.772)
Brand Strength 5.422 (3.864) 8.473 (5.794)
Experience Product 5.960 (4.497) 8.964 (6.326)
Hedonic Product -12.901 (4.153)∗∗ -23.240 (6.036)∗∗∗
Review Age .160 (.005)∗∗∗ .159 (.005)∗∗∗
Other Images 14.266 (.852)∗∗∗ 15.754 (1.043)∗∗∗
Log() 4.830 (.011)∗∗∗ 4.823 (.011)∗∗∗
Log Likelihood -25187.931 -25155.806
Number of Observations 6,060 6,060
∗∗∗ p < 0.001.
∗∗ p < 0.01.
∗ p < 0.05.

receive more helpfulness votes than images which just show
the product (e.g., pack shot).
The results further indicate that context fit does not show a
significant main effect, indicating that how well an image fits
with the product-related context expectations and associations
of a consumer does, on average, not improve the helpfulness
of a product review. Still, we find significant interactions with
review(er) and product characteristics, indicating that context
fit matters in specific conditions.
Content-contingencies for context fit
We find three significant interactions between context fit
and our contingency variables. As shown in Table 4, the in-
teraction between context fit and extremely negative reviews
is significant and negative (ß = -94.09, p < 0.01), indicating
that in case a review’s star rating is very negative, consumers
tend to prefer images low in context fit. This preference might
arise because, in such situations, consumers do not expect
well-matched images. Instead, they find it more fitting to see
images that align with the negativity of the review and thus
reduce information asymmetry.
We furthermore find a significant and negative (ß = -
.23, p < 0.001) interaction between context fit and review
length, indicating that shorter reviews should include im-
ages which are more context-specific and feature (many) ob-
jects that are tied to the reviewed product. This is in line
with our earlier argumentation that shorter reviews contain
only a limited amount of information and therefore do not
add much to reduce information asymmetry. By contrast,
adding context-fitting images strengthens the credibility and
reliability of the review and therefore reduces information
asymmetry.
For brand strength, we find a positive and significant
(ß = 53.81, p < 0.01) interaction with context fit which high-
lights that reviews for products of strong brands receive more
helpfulness votes in case that the attached images contain
objects which are closely tied to the product. In this con-
text, referring back to our argumentation that strong brands
serve as quality signals and thereby reduce information asym-
metry, images of products from strong brands embedded in
a context fitting environment could again underline that the
product is used in an appropriate and valued manner and
enhance the trust in the review(er), decreasing information
asymmetry.

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R.V. Kübler, L. Lobschat, L. Welke et al.
Content-contingencies for image focus
Our results indicate that consumers perceive multi-image
reviews that contain at least one image with an application
focus to be less helpful. This is indicated by the interaction
between other images and image focus that is significant and
negative (ß = -5.15, p < 0.01), suggesting that too many
images next to an image with an application focus lead to
information overload that does not reduce information asym-
metry.
Furthermore, our results suggest that longer reviews benefit
more from the addition of images which show the product in
application, as we find a significant and positive (ß = 0.10, p
< 0.001) interaction between image focus and review length.
It seems that the ability of longer texts to be helpful with tak-
ing a buying decision is especially supported when the image
adds more information by highlighting a use case, instead of
only showing the product itself.
Discussion
To provide additional insights from our analysis results, we
use the estimates of our two studies to further investigate the
different contingency scenarios and to predict how different
types of review images drive review helpfulness.
Prediction of review helpfulness for selected contingencies
of review images
To highlight how review helpfulness votes differ for differ-
ent contingency scenarios, we compute helpfulness votes for
different numbers of images included in a review3 , ranging
from 0 to 10 for a selected set of our contingencies. Fig. 3
presents the results of our predictions (including the confi-
dence intervals) for extreme positive (vs. average reviews),
high (two badges) vs. low (no badges) reviewer reputation,
and hedonic vs. utilitarian products.
As illustrated in Fig. 3A, our analysis reveals a notewor-
thy pattern regarding reviews with extremely positive ratings
(depicted by the red line). The review images consistently
lead to an elevated count of helpfulness votes (compared to
a review with an average rating), as evidenced by the distinct
non-overlapping confidence intervals. For reviews character-
ized by extreme positive ratings, the introduction of 10 images
corresponds to a prediction of 108 helpfulness votes which is
in stark contrast to only two predicted votes in instances with
no review images. This observed effect is statistically sig-
nificant at a level of p < 0.0014 , as established by a slope
analysis following Cohen et al. (2003).
3 The non-manipulated factors in our simulations are held at their means,
with review length being 49 words, reviewer reputation being 0.05, review
age being 647 days, and the product being a utilitarian, experience product
form a weak brand.
4 We apply a slope test to all interaction effects reported. In all cases the
results indicate that the reported effect is significant at p < .001. We thus
do not include the p-values in the subsequent reports.
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Furthermore, our investigation demonstrates that reviews
with 10 images with an average sentiment (represented by
the blue and dashed line in Fig. 3A) yields a prediction of
67 helpfulness votes, while only three helpfulness votes are
predicted in the absence of review images. Thus, it seems
that review images help to decrease information asymmetry
by enhancing the credibility of extremely positive reviews
which – without these images – might even be considered fake
(Meek, Wilk, and Lambert 2021). Hence, urging or providing
incentives for users to attach more images to reviews charac-
terized by extremely positive sentiment might be a strategic
implication for platform operators.
Fig. 3B elucidates the discrepancy in the augmentation
of helpfulness votes in reviews across distinct levels of re-
viewer reputation, specifically low and high levels. Our find-
ings underscore that the positive impact of review images is
more pronounced for reviewers with higher reputation levels
compared to less reputable reviewers. Once again, the non-
overlapping nature of the confidence intervals along our pre-
dictive trajectories underscores a significant divergence in the
augmentation of helpfulness votes.
Our simulation outcomes corroborate this observation. For
instance, for reviewers lacking reputation (characterized by
the absence of badges), the predicted helpfulness votes signif-
icantly increase from three (in the absence of review images)
to 63 (with 10 review images). In contrast, a similar review
authored by a highly reputed reviewer (distinguished by two
badges) experiences a significant surge from three (without
supplementary review images) to 209 predicted helpfulness
votes (with 10 review images).
Fig. 3C shows the differential effects of images within re-
views pertaining to hedonic (denoted by the blue dotted line)
and utilitarian (represented by the red line) products. For he-
donic products, our analysis reveals that abstaining from at-
taching images to a review corresponds, on average, to a mod-
est count of two helpfulness votes. However, the same review
with 10 review images significantly increases the anticipated
helpfulness votes to 93. Conversely, when examining utilitar-
ian products, the absence of images similarly results in only
three helpfulness votes. Yet, a review for a utilitarian product
with 10 review images leads only to a projected count of 67
helpfulness votes.
Still, while evaluating the confidence intervals for both
slopes, we find that the predicted outcome of helpfulness
votes differs significantly between the two product categories
only in cases characterized by five or more review images.
Consequently, platform administrators are advised to ac-
tively promote the attachment of multiple (ideally numer-
ous) images in the context of hedonic products. This rec-
ommendation arises from our observation that a substan-
tial increase in helpfulness votes is attained only when a
remarkably high number of images is appended to a re-
view. To incentivize such practices, platforms or reviewer
communities such as Amazon Vine could consider imple-
menting rewards for the inclusion of multiple images or ex-
plicitly urging reviewers to provide a substantial number of
images.
JID: RETAIL
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R.V. Kübler, L. Lobschat, L. Welke et al.
Fig. 3. Simulation based interaction plots for number of images.
Prediction of review helpfulness for selected contingencies
of review image content
In order to elucidate the variations in review helpfulness
votes across diverse content-specific scenarios of review im-
ages, we calculate helpfulness votes for each of these sce-
narios. Our initial step involves the computation of help-
fulness votes for an array of images with different context
fits, spanning from the lowest fit (0) to levels characterized
by the mean minus one standard deviation (0.33), the mean
(0.51), the mean plus one standard deviation (0.70), and the
maximum fit value (1). This analysis investigates the dis-
parities in helpfulness votes for reviews marked by an ex-
tremely negative rating versus those with an average rating
(Fig. 4A).
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Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
In addition, to examine the distinct impact of review im-
ages with a product vs. application focus on review useful-
ness in the context of both short and extensive reviews (as
depicted in Fig. 4B), we compute the corresponding estimates
of review helpfulness votes. The cumulative outcomes of our
predictions are presented in Fig. 4.
Regarding context fit, our analysis highlights that lower
context fit plays a particularly important role in influencing
review helpfulness, especially evident in instances of highly
negative reviews (depicted in Fig. 4A). In this context, we
observe that very low levels of context fitting images may
yield up to 54 helpfulness votes, compared to 33 votes when
context fit is really high. This significant rise stands in stark
contrast to reviews with average ratings. For such reviews, we
discern a significant decline in helpfulness votes when context
JID: RETAIL
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R.V. Kübler, L. Lobschat, L. Welke et al.
Fig. 4. Simulation based interaction plots for image content dimensions.
fit shrinks, plummeting from 30 votes (with context fit at 1)
to 16 votes (with context fit at 0).
Turning to the interplay between the focus of images – be
it product-oriented or application-oriented – and the length of
reviews (illustrated in Fig. 4B), our findings reveal intriguing
patterns. In the case of images with a pronounced product
focus, the inclusion of images markedly and significantly
amplifies helpfulness votes, surging from 16 votes for concise
reviews to 54 votes for more extensive reviews. This increase,
evident through the non-overlapping confidence intervals,
diverges notably from the more pronounced augmentation
in helpfulness that occurs with the elongation of reviews
when images carry an application-oriented focus. In this sce-
nario, succinct reviews obtain approximately 19 helpfulness
votes, while considerably lengthy reviews, accompanied by
application-focused images, amass a substantial 88 votes.
Implications for marketing practice
Consistent with established research, our findings under-
score the significance of promoting image uploads alongside
reviews. A clear trend emerges wherein reviews enriched with
a higher number of images tend to amass a greater count
of helpfulness votes. This, over the long term, could poten-
tially translate into increased sales and reduced product re-
turns (Li, Chen, and Zhang 2020). Given the necessity for
companies to employ incentives to stimulate user engagement,
our framework of contingencies yields crucial insights into the
opportune moments for companies to particularly emphasize
and incentivize image inclusion within reviews.
Our results distinctly emphasize the influential role of re-
view sentiment, particularly in the context of remarkably pos-
itive reviews where the addition of images substantially ele-
vates the levels of helpfulness. This insight positions online
retailers in a strategic position to prompt users to incorporate
visual evidence when awarding a five-star rating.
Likewise, our findings draw attention to the interplay with
review length. Notably, shorter reviews garner more pro-
nounced benefits from review images compared to longer
ones. Consequently, it would be judicious for companies to
15
[m5+;September 25, 2023;11:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
promote image uploads solely when the word count of a re-
view is exceedingly low.
Furthermore, our results indicate that reviews authored by
individuals boasting a robust reputation reap greater advan-
tages from the inclusion of images, surpassing the benefits
experienced by less established reviewers. This observation
highlights a strategic avenue where companies could focus
their encouragement of image-rich content, catering specifi-
cally to reviewers with well-established reputations. Hence,
platforms are advised to concentrate efforts on incentivizing
reviewers endowed with elevated reputations to append visual
content to their reviews. Accomplishing this objective could
involve offering emblematic incentives, such as unique badges
for content enriched with images or for prolific reviewers who
consistently incorporate visual elements. Alternatively, mon-
etary rewards could be extended to highly reputed reviewers
for their contributions of substantial and high-quality visual
content. Similarly, platforms might contemplate the imple-
mentation of a hierarchical structure of visible recognition
symbols (badges). The introduction of supplementary or ex-
clusive badges, exclusively accessible to recognized review-
ers, contingent upon their sustained incorporation of images
into reviews, could offer an added impetus for this cohort
to uphold their commendable reviewing endeavors, ultimately
catalyzing the amplification of review helpfulness votes.
Finally, our model presents a compelling argument for on-
line retailers to particularly encourage the inclusion of images
in situations characterized by elevated information asymmetry
and consumer uncertainty, often stemming from the intrinsic
attributes of the product. Our model’s outcomes underscore
this point within two specific scenarios: products associated
with weak brand identities and those of hedonic nature.
In the case of weak brands, online retailers are well-
advised to incentivize users to upload numerous images, po-
tentially through means like special badges or more substan-
tial monetary rewards. This strategic approach aids unfamiliar
consumers in gaining a more comprehensive understanding of
products that lack established reputations. Similarly, for he-
donic products, online retailers should not only promote the
upload of additional images, but could also guide reviewers
towards illustrating how they interact with the product and
JID: RETAIL
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R.V. Kübler, L. Lobschat, L. Welke et al.
what distinguishes it in their eyes. This guidance empow-
ers potential buyers to assess whether the review content and
accompanying images align with their own preferences and
habits, which can significantly diverge across consumers of
hedonic products.
Furthermore, these distinctions in consumer preferences
and usage contexts can be addressed by analyzing image con-
tent and furnishing users with tailored recommendations for
designing and composing images during the upload process.
Our supplementary follow-up study centered on image content
unequivocally highlights the heightened helpfulness of images
depicting the product in practical application, as opposed to
mere depictions of the product itself. This finding is largely
supported by the common trend and success of “unboxing”
content, where consumers document how they use the product
for the first time. Online retailers can proactively offer tuto-
rials demonstrating how users can craft insightful and useful
review images that accentuate the significance of product ap-
plication. Our results further indicate that such incentives and
tutorials should be provided to reviewers who tend to pro-
duce longer reviews. Again, dynamic content controls may be
used to educate reviewers in the moment they upload a longer
review. Given the rapid developments in (live) object detec-
tion algorithms, platforms may even mimic our measurement
approach and control images once they are uploaded to then
dynamically address customers who uploaded a pack shot im-
age and to ask them to change the image content and rather
show how they used the product.
We also find that a reduced context fit especially reduces
the number of helpfulness votes in case of short reviews.
We suspect that in these situations consumers expect images
which reflect the negativity of the review. Hence, they would
not expect images witnessing too much effort and focus on the
appropriate context. This implies that online retailers should
use algorithmic help to screen images (e.g., by mimicking our
context fit based measurement approach) and to alert review-
ers, if an image does not match the right context fit expecta-
tions.
Implications for marketing theory
In this study, we introduce a holistic contingency-based
framework that investigates how review-, reviewer-, and
product-related characteristics influence the impact of review
images on review helpfulness. Our framework aids in fur-
ther strengthening the understanding of different attributes
that contribute to the helpfulness and adoption of online
consumer reviews and, more importantly, their numerous
interactions.
The exploration of the various contingencies also provides
opportunities to resolve inconsistent findings from previous
review research. Especially in the case of reviewer reputa-
tion (Karimi and Wang 2017), our results indicate that the
inconsistent findings may be due to the higher helpfulness
scores that reviewers with higher levels of reputation receive
when they add images to their reviews. Future research could
examine this effect in more depth and also try to shed more
16
[m5+;September 25, 2023;11:20]
Journal of Retailing xxx (xxxx) xxx
light on whether this effect is due to higher quality levels and
experience in image production or due to other factors. More
importantly, we demonstrate that the presence of images in
a review moderates the impact of review valence. Thus, we
add to the canon of research examining the impact of re-
view extremity (e.g., Karaman 2021; Mudambi and Schuff
2010), contradicting prior findings regarding the helpfulness
of extreme reviews, as we show that review helpfulness only
increases when reviewers add images to extremely positive
(vs. extremely negative) reviews.
In addition, we investigate the impact of image content
on review helpfulness and explore how this impact is again
moderated by review-, reviewer-, and product-related charac-
teristics. In doing so, we bridge two growing research streams,
combining insights from image content analysis research (e.g.,
Li and Xie 2020) with online review research, and pro-
vide guidance to future research on which image content di-
mensions affect review helpfulness. This may again provide
ground for new research in the domain. Finally, our image
classification approach to identify whether images show only
the product or the product in an application scenario may
prove useful for future research in related domains and may
even provide guidance for neighboring fields, such as social
media or user-generated content research.
Limitations and future research directions
Our studies have several limitations, which offer possible
opportunities for future research. First, while our conceptual
model identifies multiple cues causing information asymme-
try, we do not control for which cues cause more or less.
Future research might thus aim to shed more light on which
review-related factors cause more or less information asym-
metry so that online retailers can also try to minimize these
sources.
Another limitation is that we rely only on reviews from
a single platform (Amazon) produced and rated by U.S. cus-
tomers. Kübler et al. (2018) note that consumers’ reactions to
online reviews are contingent on cultural background and so-
cioeconomic factors such as income and infrastructure. Thus,
future research might consider replicating our study in a
multinational context by using reviews and images from dif-
ferent national Amazon websites. Additionally, future research
may control if some of our findings are idiosyncratic to Ama-
zon, by replicating our study with reviews from other online
sources.
A final limitation pertains to fake reviews. Recent stud-
ies have highlighted an increase of manufactured and paid
reviews (Luca and Zervas 2016). Although some of our ob-
served reviews might have come from such sources, they
also might have received legitimate votes, so we can still
learn from those reviews (e.g., what makes them helpful)
(Mukherjee, Liu, and Glance 2012). However, future research
might take this issue into account, and investigate how images
in fake reviews work, by analyzing whether the presence (and
character) of images may even be helpful to discern whether
a review is fabricated.
JID: RETAIL
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R.V. Kübler, L. Lobschat, L. Welke et al.
Acknowledgments
We extend our sincere gratitude to the Editors in Chief,
Katrijn Gielens and Anne Roggeveen, for their invaluable
and most insightful guidance during the development of this
manuscript. Additionally, we express our appreciation to the
anonymous Associate Editor and the three reviewers for their
constructive and enriching comments, significantly contribut-
ing to the advancement of this work. Furthermore, we ac-
knowledge and appreciate our numerous colleagues who gen-
erously shared their feedback during various conferences and
workshops, enhancing the quality of this manuscript.
Supplementary materials
Supplementary material associated with this article can be
found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.jretai.2023.09.
001.
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