The impact of COVID-19 on online product reviews

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.

Herbal Medicines Registration Process for Zimbabwe Overview of the Process

Unregistered traditional medicines pose a huge public health threat as the safety and efficacy of these products is unknown. The issue this study addresses is the inadequate regulatory measures for herbal medicines in Zimbabwe. This project was done to describe the current registration process of traditional medicines in Zimbabwe, and to identify the gaps and opportunities they present to improve the regulatory landscape. Regulations and laws governing the registration of herbal medicines in the country and published research on legislation of herbal medicines were reviewed. Two parallel regulatory bodies both registering and controlling the sale of herbal medicines were identified. The Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe (MCAZ) and the Traditional Medical Practitioners Association (TMPA) both derive their authority to regulate from the ministry of health and were established through the act of parliament which gives these authorities power to regulate the quality and sale of traditional medicines without giving a prescriptive way of doing it. The registration process, and product evaluations for the two authorities are different. While the MCAZ has a clearly defined registration process, the TMPA does not. However, MCAZ has not been very successful in registering local products with the majority of the registered herbal products being imports and only 2% of total registered products being local herbs. As a recommendation, there is need for collaboration between the regulatory bodies for consistence in quality of herbal products on the market and to improve registration of local herbal products. Developing monographs for local herbs commonly used in the country will also assist local manufacturer to fulfill the quality requirements and successful compilation of dossiers for product registration.

Meta-cognitive impairment in processing ingredients: the effects of jargon, list length and aids on young consumers’ evaluations of cosmetic products

Purpose This study aims to examine the nonidentical impacts of identical panel information that discloses cosmetic ingredients by their English (i.e. low jargon; e.g. vitamin E) versus scientific names (i.e. high jargon; tocopherol instead) presented in short versus crowded panel on young consumers’ confidence in processing ingredients information and product judgements. In the same context, this study also explores the effects of declarative aids provided within the ingredients panel. Design/methodology/approach This study conducted four experiments by using a 2 (jargon: high, low) × 2 (ingredients list: short, long) between-subjects analysis of variance design. Findings Young consumers’ processing-confidence and product evaluations increase (decrease) when the panel is brief (crowded) and presents cosmetic ingredients in low (high) jargon (Experiments 1, 2). However, when it discloses a factual aid [i.e. ingredient functions; e.g. tocopherol (antioxidant)], confidence in processing even the high-jargon information, as well as product judgements, increases irrespective of the panel’s length (Experiment 3). Moreover, a fictitious aid (e.g. dryness-fighting “atomic robots”) stimulates the same effect and bolsters processing confidence and product evaluations irrespective of both jargon and panel’s length (Experiment 4). Originality/value Despite their heavy use of over-the-counter beauty/cosmetic products, little do we know how young consumers consult and use on-pack ingredients information provided in one format versus the other. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first experimental work investigating the cosmetics-consuming youth’s reactions to panel format and aids to processing.

Mining numerical measure of consumers’ product evaluation expressed in words based on latent Dirichlet allocation

Purpose It has always been a hot topic for online retailers to obtain consumers’ product evaluations from massive online reviews. In the process of online shopping, there is no face-to-face interaction between online retailers and customers. After collecting online reviews left by customers, online retailers are eager to acquire answers to some questions. For example, which product attributes will attract consumers? Or which step brings a better experience to consumers during the process of shopping? This paper aims to associate the latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) model with the consumers’ attitude and provides a method to calculate the numerical measure of consumers’ product evaluation expressed in each word. Design/methodology/approach First, all possible pairs of reviews are organized as a document to build the corpus. After that, latent topics of the traditional LDA model noted as the standard LDA model, are separated into shared and differential topics. Then, the authors associate the model with consumers’ attitudes toward each review which is distinguished as positive review and non-positive review. The product evaluation reflected in consumers’ binary attitude is expanded to each word that appeared in the corpus. Finally, a variational optimization is introduced to calculate parameters mentioned in the expanded LDA model. Findings The experiment’s result illustrates that the LDA model in the research noted as an expanded LDA model, can successfully assign sufficient probability with words related to products attributes or consumers’ product evaluation. Compared with the standard LDA model, the expanded model intended to assign higher probability with words, which have a higher ranking within each topic. Besides, the expanded model also has higher precision on the prediction set, which shows that breaking down the topics into two categories fits better on the data set than the standard LDA model. The product evaluation of each word is calculated by the expanded model and depicted at the end of the experiment. Originality/value This research provides a new method to calculate consumers’ product evaluation from reviews in the level of words. Words may be used to describe product attributes or consumers’ experiences in reviews. Assigning words with numerical measures can analyze consumers’ products evaluation quantitatively. Besides, words are labeled themselves, they can also be ranked if a numerical measure is given. Online retailers can benefit from the result for label choosing, advertising or product recommendation.

Competitive Product Identification and Sales Forecast Based on Consumer Reviews

Sellers readily obtain consumer product evaluations from online reviews in order to identify competitive products in detail and predict sales. Firstly, we collect product review data from shopping websites, social media, product communities, and other online platforms to identify product competitors with the help of word-frequency cooccurrence technology. We take mobile phones as an example to mine and analyze product competition information. Then, we calculate the product review quantity, review emotion value, product-network heat, and price statistics and establish the regression model of online product review forecasts. In addition, the neural-network model is established to suggest that the relationships among factors are linear. On the basis of analyzing and discussing the impact of product sales of the competitors, product price, the emotional value of the reviews, and product-network popularity, we construct the sales forecast model. Finally, to verify the validity of the factor analysis affecting the sales and the rationality of the established model, actual sales data are used to further analyze and verify the model, showing that the model is reasonable and effective.

Item Response Theory Utilization for Developing the Student Collaboration Ability Assessment Scale in STEM Classes

Collaboration is an ability that develops in STEM learning and is very influential in 21st-century life. Thus, students' collaboration abilities must be detected properly. This study aims to produce a quality and easy-to-use instrument for assessing student collaboration skills in STEM classes. The research is development research that contains three steps, namely preliminary research, making prototypes, and conducting product evaluations. Methods of data collection using FGD and questionnaires. The FGD was carried out with experts to produce descriptive data and assessment instruments as well as questionnaires which were also development products with data in the form of graded scales 1, 2, 3, and 4. The study involved 187 junior high school students who took lessons in STEM classes. The instrument is a questionnaire with 4 graded answer choices. To ensure the quality of the instrument, the researcher conducted FGD and expert validation and proved the construct with CFA. The instrument profile was traced using the unidimensional graded response model (GRM) method of response analysis. The results showed that the final instrument containing 17 items was declared valid in terms of content and constructs, as well as reliable. The results of the item analysis show that all items have good sequential step parameters (b1 < b2 < b3), all items have a good discriminant index (0.995 ≤ ai ≤ 1.764), and the instrument is reliable for measuring students with an ability range of -6.15 < θ < 4.05. Thus, this instrument can define students' abilities well in a wide range of abilities.

The Stroop Task Influences Product Evaluations

Cognitive conflict is considered to represent a psychologically negative signal. Indeed, a recent publication showed that cognitive conflict emerging from the Stroop task influences evaluations for neutral shapes that had become associated with conflict and non-conflict, respectively. Building on these findings, the present research investigates the degree to which Stroop conflict influences evaluations of actual products. In an experimental study, participants performed a Stroop task in which they responded to conflict trials (e.g., the word red presented in a blue font) as well as non-conflict trials (e.g., the word red presented in a red font). Participants were also presented with two pictures featuring bottled water brands: One brand was consistently presented after non-conflict trials; the other brand was consistently presented after conflict trials. When participants evaluated the products, the results showed they rated the product associated with Stroop conflict less favorably than the product associated with non-conflict; however, this effect only emerged when participants were thirsty. When participants were not thirsty, no differences emerged. The present findings add to the literature on cognitive conflict and negativity, suggesting that Stroop conflict can influence product evaluations when those products are goal relevant.