The Reverse Effect of Reviewers’ Sentiment Tendency: The Role of Readers’ Empathy and Trust

Streamers have become a crucial component of consumers' live shopping experience. Reviewers will transfer their emotions about the streamer to the product-after review. We innovatively verified the reverse effect of reviewers' sentiment tendency toward streamer on the product sustained sale in the streamer's live streaming. Results from a field data set and three lab experiments show that reviewers' positive sentiment tendency toward the streamer has a negative effect on the readers' purchase intention when the streamer resale this product in his live streaming. While reviewers' negative sentiment tendency toward the streamer can enhance readers' purchase intention to the product resold in the streamer's live streaming. These effects are separately mediated by readers' trust in the review and their empathy to the streamer. And the two mediators are moderated by the streamer's expertise. Our findings expand the literatures about reviews' emotions and suggest implications for streamers, retailers, and review platforms faced with the task of managing live-shopping reviews.