Visual and verbal fit-diagnostic contextual cues and review helpfulness in online apparel reviews

초록

This study examines how contextual cues embedded in text and images are associated with the helpfulness of online apparel reviews. Focusing on women's dresses, a product category characterized by high product fit uncertainty, the analysis investigated two fit-diagnostic contextual cues that directly support consumers' judgments of “whether the product will fit me.” These cues are the disclosure of reviewers' body size information in review text and the inclusion of try-on photos showing the product worn by a real person. Using a manually coded dataset of 1,596 Amazon reviews, this study employed negative binomial regression models to analyze helpfulness votes. The results indicated that both body size disclosure and try-on photos are positively linked to review helpfulness. Additional exploratory analyses suggested that body size disclosure tended to be more consistently associated with review helpfulness when try-on photos were also present, although the pooled interaction term was not statistically significant. The findings underscored the role of these cues for review helpfulness in fit-sensitive apparel categories where body variability and fit ambiguity are pronounced, and suggested practical implications for review system design in these contexts. This study contributes to the multimodal online review literature by introducing the concept of fit-diagnostic contextual cues and showing how verbal and visual review elements serve as reference points for evaluating product fit. © 2026 Elsevier Ltd

키워드