Online information search and utilization of electronic word-of-mouth ABSTRACT Research on online consumer information search behavior has typically concentrated on search-type information instead of experience information. This article focuses on electronic word- of-mouth (eWOM) as a source of experience information, and we study the relationships between the antecedents, amount and utilization of eWOM searched. Using survey data from 1660 customers of two travel agencies, we find that 1) the search for eWOM differs distinctively from the search for marketer- generated online content, and 2) the more eWOM is being searched, the less it is being utilized in the final purchase decision. Keywords Online information search, electronic word-of-mouth, experience information 1. INTRODUCTION Information search is an acknowledged phase in consumer decision making process [31, 37, 47] and the internet has had a significant impact on it [21, 24, 38]. The internet offers a wide range of information from marketers’ own web sites to consumer discussions, and the information varies from standardized and objective to diverse and subjective. The type of information can be classified into search and experience information [14, 15, 23]. The former refers to information that can be viewed as objective and easily comparable, and it regards factual information such as price and product attributes. Experience information, on the other hand, is subjective and personal and concerns consumers’ own preferences, ideas and opinions. Search and experience information differ mainly on their semantic complexity: search information can typically be put in standardized and simple forms while experience information is more varying and complex to convey [15]. The distinction is derived from the search/experience classification paradigm that is traditionally used to categorize products [14, 23]. Research regarding online information search has often concentrated on impersonal marketer-controlled content by investigating consumers’ means of searching for information at companies’ own web sites and online stores [22, 41]. Many researchers argue that consumers go online to look for search information but turn to offline sources (mostly friends and family) for experience information due to the high perceived risk attached to online sources [15, 24, 38, 50]. Especially low trust and credibility towards online sources have been seen to be the main reasons for the weak utility of the internet for experience information [15]. Furthermore, online sources typically fall short in terms of sensory stimulation, which is important in the evaluation of products’ experiential qualities [14, 15]. However, as a large number of consumers use social media as an information source [20], it is worth exploring which factors influence the search for user-generated content—referred here as Essi Pöyry Aalto University School of Economics 00076 AALTO +358 40 353 8448 essi.poyry@aalto.fi Petri Parvinen Aalto University School of Economics 00076 AALTO +358 50 312 0905 petri.parvinen@aalto.fi Jari Salo Aalto University School of Economics 00076 AALTO +358 40 353 8399 jari.salo@aalto.fi Olli Tiainen Aalto University School of Economics 00076 AALTO +358 40 550 0907 olli.tiainen@aalto.fi Hedon Blakaj Aalto University School of Economics 00076 AALTO +358 40 353 8302 hedon.blakaj@aalto.fi