Information form and level-of-analysis as moderators of the influence of information diagnosticity on consumer choice confidence and purchase readiness

In order to build consumer choice confidence and ready consumers to act on purchase opportunities, marketing managers must determine the optimal combination of information characteristics that will produce the desired results. The results from this research reveal that this task is far from trivial. More than 200 consumers participated in a study. Findings indicate that unique combinations of information form (verbal vs. numeric) and level-of-analysis (summary-level vs. detail-level) moderate the influence of diagnostic information on choice confidence that has been documented in prior research. Moreover, information form and level-of-analysis also alter the influence of diagnostic information on purchase readiness, and measures of consumer understanding and preference clarity. The processes via which these effects manifest are also discussed. Given that information form and level-of-analysis are often varied in consumer marketspaces, this research holds important implications for marketing practice. The research also augments theory on consumer choice confidence and information diagnosticity.