Online customers’ cognitive differences and their impact on the success of recommendation agents

RAs (recommendation agents) have become a major way to assist customers make online purchase decisions. However, do customers consider an RAs’ advice to be as important as managers expect? Which customers, if any, use RAs more frequently? Although these questions are crucial to Website management, sparse knowledge of the answers was found. Based on 316 randomly selected customers, we empirically demonstrated that customers’ deliberations were not determined by a single cognitive trait, as examined in past IS studies; their decision was more due a function of innovativeness and involvement. More-involved users were found to adopt an RAs’ advice. Managerial implications of these findings are discussed.