An online consumer review is the information including experiences, evaluations and opinions on products from the consumer perspective. An online consumer review plays two roles - informant and recommender. Considering two factors of review structure (the number of reviews and review type), this study analyzes the effect of online consumer reviews on consumers’ information processing depending on their levels of involvement. Generally, more positive reviews seem better from the perspective of online consumer reviews as recommenders. However, from the perspective of online consumer reviews as information providers, consumers may be confronted with too much information when a large number of reviews are offered, which results in information overload. We investigate when information overload occurs in the context of online consumer reviews, what strategies against the information overload consumers use depending on their levels of involvement, and how the product attitude and purchasing intention are changed. Our findings have implications for online sellers in terms of how to manage online consumer reviews contents
