New Hidden Persuaders: An Investigation of Attribute-Level Anchoring Effects of Product Recommendations

Abstract Recommender systems on marketers’ websites are typically designed to facilitate purchase decisions by helping customers easily identify products that match their tastes and needs. However, such product recommendations can not only support but also influence decision-making and outcomes. Expanding on previous research on the persuasiveness of product recommendations, this paper demonstrates that recommender systems can affect online decision-making through an anchoring effect such that consumers’ decision-making processes and, ultimately, choices are biased toward numerical attributes of (even random) product recommendations; we refer to this phenomenon as attribute-level anchoring effect. The findings of the current research reveal that this effect occurs because consumers tend to pay more attention to alternatives that are similar to a recommended option. From a practical perspective, these results indicate the potential to shape consumer interests and choices through recommender systems and highlight possible customer protection issues in online shopping environments.