Online reviews and product sales: the role of review visibility
Fecha
2021Versión
Acceso abierto / Sarbide irekia
Tipo
Artículo / Artikulua
Versión
Versión publicada / Argitaratu den bertsioa
Impacto
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nodoi-noplumx
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Resumen
When studying the impact of online reviews on product sales, previous scholars have usually assumed that every review for a product has the same probability of being viewed by consumers. However, decision-making and information processing theories underline that the accessibility of information plays a role in consumer decision-making. We incorporate the notion of review visibility to study the r ...
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When studying the impact of online reviews on product sales, previous scholars have usually assumed that every review for a product has the same probability of being viewed by consumers. However, decision-making and information processing theories underline that the accessibility of information plays a role in consumer decision-making. We incorporate the notion of review visibility to study the relationship between online reviews and product sales, which is proxied by sales rank information, studying three different cases: (1) when every online review isassumed to have the same probability of being viewed; (2) when we assume that consumers sort online reviews by the most helpful mechanism; and (3) when we assume that consumers sort online reviews by the most recent mechanism. Review non-textual and textual variables are analyzed. The empirical analysis is conducted using a panel of 119 cosmetic products over a period of nine weeks. Using the system generalized method of moments (system GMM) method for dynamic models of panel data, our findings reveal that review variables influence product sales, but the magnitude, and even the direction of the effect, vary amongst visibility cases. Overall, the characteristics of the most helpful reviews have a higher impact on sales. [--]
Materias
eWOMx,
Electronic word of mouth,
User-generated content,
Online reviews,
Product sales,
Information accessibility,
Information overload,
Sorting
Editor
MDPI
Publicado en
Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research, 16 (4), 638-669
Departamento
Universidad Pública de Navarra. Departamento de Gestión de Empresas /
Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa. Enpresen Kudeaketa Saila
Entidades Financiadoras
This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation grant number ECO2015-65393-R