The Impact of Curation Commerce Characteristics on Willingness to Pay a Premium Price: The Moderating Effect of Information Format in the Chinese E-commerce Market

This study investigates the impact of different information sources (celebrity vs. expert) and product types (hedonic vs. utilitarian) on consumers' willingness to pay a premium price, focusing on the moderating effect of information format (video vs. image). Two online experiments were conducted with a total of 346 participants. In the first experiment, celebrity endorsements significantly increased consumers' willingness to pay a premium price, particularly when presented in a video format, with mean scores rising from 4.90 to 5.45. This indicates that video formats amplify emotional engagement, making celebrity-endorsed products more appealing. Conversely, no significant difference was observed between video and image formats for expert endorsements, indicating that perceived credibility remains stable across formats. The second experiment showed that hedonic products elicited higher willingness to pay a premium price compared to utilitarian products, with the effect being more pronounced in video formats. For hedonic products, the mean score increased from 4.72 to 5.55 when presented in video format. In contrast, the format did not significantly influence willingness to pay for utilitarian products, suggesting that the functional appeal of such products is less affected by the mode of presentation. These findings highlight the importance of matching endorsement type, product category, and information format to optimize consumer perceptions and premium pricing strategies. Marketers are advised to use video formats for celebrity endorsements of hedonic products, while for utilitarian products, emphasis should remain on clear functional messaging, regardless of format. Future research should expand sample sizes, explore additional product categories, and investigate emerging information formats to validate these findings.