Abstract Online intermediaries have become important information sources for consumers’ purchase decision making. However, the economic values of consumer visits to two online intermediaries, namely, online community and product channel, have not been well studied. By collecting a dataset on consumer visits from a large real estate website to match with local offline housing sales data, we empirically explore the respective, relative, and interaction effects of consumer visits to online communities and product channels on sales of large consumer goods. We control for relevant factors, account for potential endogeneity issues, and perform various robustness checks to validate the consistency of our findings. Our results show that consumer visits to online communities have a more significant effect than those to product channels in driving sales. However, the interaction effect of consumer visits to these two online intermediaries on sales is negative. We also find that consumer website-related experience has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between consumer visits to product channels and sales. Our findings provide important theoretical contributions and managerial implications.

中文翻译：

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消费者访问在线社区和产品渠道对大型消费品本地销售的影响：房地产行业的证据

摘要在线中介已成为消费者购买决策的重要信息来源。但是，消费者访问两个在线中介（即在线社区和产品渠道）的经济价值尚未得到很好的研究。通过从大型房地产网站收集有关消费者访问的数据集以与本地离线房屋销售数据相匹配，我们从经验上探索了消费者访问在线社区和产品渠道对大型消费品销售的各自，相对和交互作用。我们控制相关因素，解决潜在的内生性问题，并执行各种健壮性检查以验证我们发现的一致性。我们的结果表明，消费者对在线社区的访问比对产品渠道的访问对推动销售的影响更大。然而，消费者访问这两个在线中介对销售的互动影响是负面的。我们还发现，与消费者网站相关的体验对消费者访问产品渠道与销售之间的关系具有显着的调节作用。我们的发现提供了重要的理论贡献和管理意义。