Credible Effects: The Impact of Disclosure of Material Connections Within Online Product Reviews

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-368
Author(s):  
Michelle D. Steward ◽  
Alvin C. Burns ◽  
Felicia N. Morgan ◽  
Michelle L. Roehm
Keyword(s):  
Federal Trade Commission ◽  
Online Reviews ◽  
Product Reviews ◽  
Online Product Reviews ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Impact ◽  
First Time ◽  
Source Of Information

Online product reviews are an influential source of information for consumers. With pressures to have readily available reviews, businesses must determine the best strategy for obtaining them. In 2009, for the first time in 29 years, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) updated endorsement guidelines to address concerns over possible deception within online reviews. Since that time, the FTC has issued four additional statements underlining its concerns and providing additional examples of how to comply. In 2017, the first action of enforcement was made against individuals failing to adhere to these guidelines. In light of the FTC’s guidelines and pressures to have reviews, businesses must ask which type of affiliated reviewers, if any, are the most influential. As to reviewer credibility, the literature offers contradictory predictions. Through three experiments with a total of 1,077 consumers, the authors examine effects of reviewer affiliation. The findings affirm the spirit of the FTC’s updated guidelines. However, affiliation comes at a cost. Depending on the competitive context, the cost may be worth the benefits.

scholarly journals May we buy your love? psychological effects of incentives on writing likelihood and valence of online product reviews

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 805-820
Author(s):  
Ina Garnefeld ◽  
Sabrina Helm ◽  
Ann-Kathrin Grötschel
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Online Reviews ◽  
Psychological Effects ◽  
Online Review ◽  
Product Reviews ◽  
Monetary Rewards ◽  
Online Product Reviews ◽  
The Impact

AbstractAcknowledging the impact on their sales, companies strive to increase the number of positive online reviews of their products. A recently popular practice for stimulating online reviews is offering monetary rewards to customers in return for writing an online review. However, it is unclear whether such practices succeed in fulfilling two main objectives, namely, increasing the number and the valence of online reviews. With one pilot and two experimental studies, this research shows that offering incentives indeed increases the likelihood of review writing. However, the effect on review valence is mixed, due to contradictory psychological effects: Incentive recipients intend to reciprocate by writing favorable reviews but also perceive a need to resist marketers’ influence, which negatively affects their review valence. Finally, recipients who are less satisfied with the product are particularly prone to psychological costs and decrease the positivity of their online reviews. Consequently, incentives should be applied carefully.

scholarly journals Online Product Reviews and Their Impact on Third Party Sellers Using Natural Language Processing

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-47
Author(s):  
Akash Phaniteja Nellutla ◽  
Manoj Hudnurkar ◽  
Suhas Suresh Ambekar ◽  
Abhay D. Lidbe
Keyword(s):  
Sentiment Analysis ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Topic Modeling ◽  
Online Reviews ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Bag Of Words ◽  
Product Reviews ◽  
Specific Product ◽  
Online Product Reviews ◽  
The Impact

The purpose of this paper is to gain insights from the online product reviews of e-commerce sites such as Flipkart and Amazon and analyze its impact on third party sellers. To judge the authenticity of a product, reviews are more useful than ratings, since ratings do not give a complete picture. It is always preferred to consider both the product and seller reviews to have a seamless delivery and defect less product. In this paper, natural processing methods are used to gain insights by considering online reviews of a product. Methods such as sentiment analysis, bag of words model help to understand the impact of online product reviews on the seller's ratings and their performance over some time. The reviews are categorized into positive, negative, and neutral using sentiment analysis. Further, topic modeling is done to find out the topic reviews are majorly referring to. The seller reviews for a specific product after analysis are compared with the overall seller reviews to judge the authenticity. The results of this paper would be beneficial to both the consumers and sellers.

The impact of COVID-19 on online product reviews

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Omer Cem Kutlubay ◽  
Mesut Cicek ◽  
Serdar Yayla
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Online Reviews ◽  
Product Reviews ◽  
Product Evaluations ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Online Product Reviews ◽  
Online Product Ratings ◽  
Negative Tone ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Product Ratings

Purpose The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to drastic changes in the lives of customers. Social isolation, financial difficulties, fear of being infected and many other factors have caused the psychological well-being of customers to deteriorate. By taking up the role of online reviews in the regulation of consumers’ moods, this study aims to examine the changes that have occurred in online product ratings, as well as the negative tone and word counts of product reviews during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach This study examines the online reviews of 321 products in the pre-COVID, immediate COVID and extended COVID periods. This paper compares the changes that have taken place in product evaluations via various analysis of variance analyses. The authors also test the effect of COVID-related deaths on product evaluations via regression analyses. Findings The results indicate that online product ratings decreased sharply just after the outbreak of COVID-19. The study also found that the tone of reviews was found to be more negative and the length of reviews appeared to be longer in comparison to the pre-COVID-19 period. The results also revealed that the product type (experience vs search) moderated the effect of the pandemic in online reviews and the impact of COVID-19 on online product reviews diminished in the later stages of the ongoing pandemic. Practical implications Managers should be aware of the detrimental impact of pandemics on online product reviews and be more responsive to customer problems during the early stages of pandemics. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that analyzes the effects of a pandemic on online product ratings and review content. As such, this study offers a timely contribution to the marketing literature.

scholarly journals Autism Tsunami: the Impact of Rising Prevalence on the Societal Cost of Autism in the United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Blaxill ◽  
Toby Rogers ◽  
Cynthia Nevison
Keyword(s):  
Forecast Model ◽  
The United States ◽  
Population Projections ◽  
Base Case ◽  
Prevention Strategies ◽  
Total Base ◽  
Cost Categories ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Impact ◽  
First Time

AbstractThe cost of ASD in the U.S. is estimated using a forecast model that for the first time accounts for the true historical increase in ASD. Model inputs include ASD prevalence, census population projections, six cost categories, ten age brackets, inflation projections, and three future prevalence scenarios. Future ASD costs increase dramatically: total base-case costs of $223 (175–271) billion/year are estimated in 2020; $589 billion/year in 2030, $1.36 trillion/year in 2040, and $5.54 (4.29–6.78) trillion/year by 2060, with substantial potential savings through ASD prevention. Rising prevalence, the shift from child to adult-dominated costs, the transfer of costs from parents onto government, and the soaring total costs raise pressing policy questions and demand an urgent focus on prevention strategies.

Looking beyond the stars: A description of text mining technique to extract latent dimensions from online product reviews

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-215
Author(s):  
Frederik Situmeang ◽  
Nelleke de Boer ◽  
Austin Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Text Mining ◽  
Customer Satisfaction ◽  
Research Methodology ◽  
Latent Dirichlet Allocation ◽  
Online Reviews ◽  
Product Reviews ◽  
Marketing Literature ◽  
Mining Technique ◽  
Online Product Reviews ◽  
The Relationship

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the marketing literature and practice by describing a research methodology to identify latent dimensions of customer satisfaction in product reviews, and examining the relationship between these attributes and customer satisfaction. Previous research in product reviews has largely relied only on quantitative ratings, either stars or review score. Advanced techniques for text mining provide the opportunity to extract meaning from customer online reviews. By analyzing 51,110 online reviews for 1,610 restaurants via latent Dirichlet allocation, this study uncovers 30 latent dimensions that are determinants of customer satisfaction. Furthermore, this study developed measurements of sentiment and innovativeness as moderators of the effect of these latent attributes to satisfaction.

The impact of monetary rewards for online reviews

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 1486-1515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yongrui Duan ◽  
Chen Chen ◽  
Jiazhen Huo
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Online Reviews ◽  
Monetary Reward ◽  
Product Reviews ◽  
Purchase Decisions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
Monetary Rewards ◽  
Stage 1 ◽  
The Impact

Purpose To encourage buyers to contribute product reviews, some online sellers offer monetary rewards. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of monetary rewards on buyers’ purchase decisions and review contributions, as well as the impact on the seller’s price decisions and profit. Design/methodology/approach The authors consider an online seller in a two-stage setting. Prior to Stage 1, the profit-maximizing seller sets the price and decides whether to offer a monetary reward secretly to motivate online reviews. Then, a continuum of buyers arrives and makes purchase decisions at the beginning of each stage. First-stage buyers may contribute reviews if they are satisfied, which will affect demand in the second stage. Using this analytical framework, the authors analyze the impact of monetary rewards. Findings If the monetary reward is small, it decreases the seller’s profit and fails to generate more reviews. It also increases price, leading to a decline in total demand. Thus, when the reward is lower than a certain threshold, all buyers are worse off. Only when the reward exceeds the threshold are buyers who contribute reviews better off. Profit and total demand both increase in review quality, while the price may either increase or decrease in it. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to analyze theoretically the impact of monetary rewards on buyers’ purchase decisions, review contributions and on online sellers’ decisions.

scholarly journals Exploring Determinants of Attraction and Helpfulness of Online Product Review: A Consumer Behaviour Perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xu Chen ◽  
Jie Sheng ◽  
Xiaojun Wang ◽  
Jiangshan Deng
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Method ◽  
Consumer Behaviour ◽  
Online Reviews ◽  
Product Reviews ◽  
Implicit Information ◽  
Online Product Review ◽  
Review Helpfulness ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Method Approach

To assist filtering and sorting massive review messages, this paper attempts to examine the determinants of review attraction and helpfulness. Our analysis divides consumers’ reading process into “notice stage” and “comprehend stage” and considers the impact of “explicit information” and “implicit information” of review attraction and review helpfulness. 633 online product reviews were collected from Amazon China. A mixed-method approach is employed to test the conceptual model proposed for examining the influencing factors of review attraction and helpfulness. The empirical results show that reviews with negative extremity, more words, and higher reviewer rank easily gain more attraction and reviews with negative extremity, higher reviewer rank, mixed subjective property, and mixed sentiment seem to be more helpful. The research findings provide some important insights, which will help online businesses to encourage consumers to write good quality reviews and take more active actions to maximise the value of online reviews.

The Impact of Online Product Reviews on Product Returns

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 723-738 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nachiketa Sahoo ◽  
Chrysanthos Dellarocas ◽  
Shuba Srinivasan
Keyword(s):  
Product Reviews ◽  
Product Returns ◽  
Online Product Reviews ◽  
The Impact

Clay minerals in onshore and offshore strata of the British Isles: origins and clay mineral stratigraphy

Clay Minerals ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-3 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. V. Jeans ◽  
R. J. Merriman
Keyword(s):  
Clay Minerals ◽  
Clay Mineral ◽  
Clay Mineralogy ◽  
Petroleum Exploration ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Mineral Research ◽  
Mineral Data ◽  
The Cost ◽  
First Time ◽  
Source Of Information

AbstractThe publication of The Clay Mineralogy of British Sediments by Perrin in 1971 collated several decades of clay mineral research in the British Isles and for the first time presented all the data in a stratigraphical framework. While it quickly became a useful source of information for geologists, engineers and soil scientists, it also revealed many gaps in clay mineral data through the geological succession, stimulating further research. Within ten years of publication, a successor to Perrin's book was under discussion by the Clay Minerals Group. Inevitably, the enthusiasm for the concept of the project gave way to the patience of a long gestation. A successor to Perrin (1971) became a standing item on the agenda of Clay Minerals Group Committee meetings, and the bane of many a Chairman's three years in office. By the mid-1990s the project began to show real progress, gathering momentum from the success of an international series of 'Cambridge clay mineral diagenesis conferences' (1981, 1984, 1986, 1989, 1993, 1998) that were supported by the oil industry. A timely injection of financial support from the Joint Association for Petroleum Exploration Courses (JAPEC) ensured a successful conclusion for the project.The cost of publication has been borne by three sponsors: the Clay Minerals Group, JAPEC (UK: training), and the Mineralogical Society. Consequently, the financing of this Special Volume of Clay Minerals is entirely independent of the usual costs of publishing the journal. We owe our particular thanks to Kevin Murphy, Editorial Manager, for his care and humour in guiding Clay minerals in onshore and offshore strata of the British Isles through publication.

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