What’s More Persuasive: “Top Rated” or “Best Seller?”

Think about the last time you shopped online. You probably encountered products that were touted as being popular with other consumers. Some products may have been labeled "top rated" while others were labeled "best seller." In marketing, these are called "consensus cues," and research shows that they make products more appealing.

A "top rated" product may seem the same as a "best seller," but a closer look reveals that one refers to others' opinions of the product while the other refers to their behaviors. Marketing research typically lumps these together, but maybe not all consensus cues are equally effective.

A Difference in Cultural Values

We thought that whether one type of popularity was more persuasive than the other would depend on a person's cultural background. Psychologists have often distinguished between "individualistic" and "collectivistic" cultures. In individualistic cultures such as Western Europe and the U.S., people often have an independent self-view, seeing themselves as distinct and separate from others. People in such cultures tend to value self-reliance and personal freedom. By contrast, in collectivistic cultures such as India and Latin America, people often view themselves as interdependent—interconnected and embedded within close networks of important others. Those cultures tend to value social approval and interpersonal harmony.

So, why would different cultures respond differently to one consensus cue versus another? We reasoned that, for people in independent cultures, opinions are tools of personal agency, and people are expected to choose what they like. Choices reveal preferences. Therefore, others' opinions and behaviors signal the same thing. As a result, in individualistic cultures, saying that a product is the "top rated" one in the marketplace feels the same as calling it the "best selling" one.

In contrast, in interdependent cultures, where conformity is emphasized, behavioral consensus may not necessarily signal that buyers prefer the product. They may have just been following norms, buying a product even though they didn't personally prefer it. For example, we analyzed data from Amazon.com and found that in the U.S., the best-selling products were also the best-rated ones, but this was not the case in India.

We also looked at market research data across several countries, and we found that in interdependent cultures such as Mexico and South Korea, a brand's overall reputation with consumers was not tied to people's tendency to buy that brand, but it was strongly tied to people's tendency to say they preferred the brand. However, in independent cultures such as Canada and the U.K., people's tendencies to buy and prefer the brand were equally predictive of a brand's overall reputation with consumers. 

Putting It To The Test

We conducted five experiments to see if one type of popularity signal was more persuasive than the other and whether this depended on cultural values.

In one study, we asked 200 people from the United States and India to indicate how much they would be willing to pay for a tablet that either 85% of consumers loved or that 85% of consumers bought. In India, participants were willing to pay 28% more for the tablet when it was widely loved versus widely bought, consistent with our reasoning that best-sellers aren't necessarily the most widely liked products in this cultural environment. In contrast, U.S. participants were willing to pay the same amount regardless.

We also conducted other studies to see if it was really people's cultural self-view that mattered and not some other quirk between American versus Indian survey respondents. For example, in one of these studies, we asked a representative sample of 303 U.S. participants to complete a questionnaire to see how much they think of themselves in independent or interdependent terms. In another study, we encouraged almost 200 people to temporarily think of themselves in independent or interdependent terms. In all cases, we observed patterns consistent with the cross-national study: Interdependents were more persuaded by consensus opinions versus consensus behaviors and independents didn't distinguish between the two types of consensus.

Persuasion in a Global Marketplace is Challenging

The marketplace is filled with products and information about them. Search for a stapler online, and you're instantly presented with countless options from many brands. Sure, you could spend a week carefully cataloging every option's specifications and making a fully reasoned choice. However, marketers know that consumers are looking for an easier way to make a choice, so they try to signal the popularity of their products.

Our research suggests that what people ultimately want to know is which product people like the most. Although some people may infer popular opinion from information about what has sold more, that's not always the case. At least in interdependent cultures, it is better to directly signal that others like a product rather than that they bought it.

For Further Reading

Barnes, A. J. & Shavitt, S. (2023), "Top Rated or Best Seller? Culture Influences Responses to Attitudinal versus Behavioral Consensus Cues," Journal of Consumer Research. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucad074

Aaron J. Barnes is the LaDonna and Charlie Johnson Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Louisville. He studies the cross-cultural factors affecting persuasion, branding, and consumer–brand relationships.

Sharon Shavitt is Research Professor at the Gies College of Business, University of Illinois. She studies the cross-cultural factors affecting persuasion, self-presentation, and survey responding.