What Drives Users' Website Registration? A Randomized Field Experiment

User registration is an important prerequisite for the success of many websites by enabling users to gain access to domain information and often personalized content. It is not always desirable for users, however, because they need to disclose personal information. This paper examines what drives user registration. The results show that brand awareness is an important determinant of user registration by negatively moderating (attenuating) the negative effect of information privacy concerns on user registration and positively moderating (reinforcing) the positive effect of trust on user registration. Furthermore, to alleviate information privacy concerns and build trust in the website, we conducted a randomized field experiment and empirically examined the effectiveness of advertising two types of information, i.e., word-of-mouth information and popularity information, and measured their economic value. Interestingly, when both types of information are shown, the website achieved over 12% higher conversion rate than without any information.