Buyers' and Sellers' Explanations for Product Failure: Who Done It?

Abstract

Buyers and sellers read descriptions of a product failure and were asked to explain why it occurred. When sellers explained failures of products they themselves offered, they tended to find fault with the product itself less often than did consumers. Discrepancies in buyer-seller attributions were related to estimates of how commonly the product fails, suggesting that consensus information may be one source of buyer-seller differences.