“Worse Than What I Read?” The External Effect of Review Ratings on the Online Review Generation Process: An Empirical Analysis of Multiple Product Categories Using Amazon.com Review Data

Abstract

In this paper, we study the online consumer review generation process by analyzing 37.12 million online reviews across nineteen product categories obtained from Amazon.com. This study revealed that the discrepancy between ratings by others and consumers’ post-purchasing evaluations significantly influenced both the valence and quantity of the reviews that consumers generated. Specifically, a negative discrepancy (‘worse than what I read’) significantly accelerates consumers to write negative reviews (19/19 categories supported), while a positive discrepancy (‘better than what I read’) accelerates consumers to write positive reviews (16/19 categories supported). This implies that others’ ratings play an important role in influencing the review generation process by consumers. More interestingly, we found that this discrepancy significantly influences consumers’ neutral review generation, which is known to amplify the effect of positive or negative reviews by affecting consumers’ search behavior or the credibility of the information. However, this effect is asymmetric. While negative discrepancies lead consumers to write more neutral reviews, positive discrepancies help reduce neutral review generation. Furthermore, our findings provide important implications for marketers who tend to generate fake reviews or selectively generate reviews favorable to their products to increase sales. Doing so may backfire on firms because negative discrepancies can accelerate the generation of objective or negative reviews.

The Effect of Marketing Activities on Web Search Volume: An Empirical Analysis of Chinese Film Industry Data

“…First, the commercial impact of marketing activities needs to be further studied beyond the web search volume. We certainly believe that not only information searches, but also evaluation, choice, and even online review generation will be determined by marketing activities [44][45][46]. However, this question was out of the scope of our current research, because we were specifically interested in the web search volume.…”

Incentivised dishonesty: Moral frameworks underlying fake online reviews

“…However, the anonymity inherent in online platforms has given rise to the issue of fake reviews, posing challenges as customers struggle to discern the authenticity of online feedback compared to traditional word of mouth recommendations. This has led to several documented instances where customers have been misled by fraudulent reviews (Park et al, 2021), underscoring the need for vigilance and improved mechanisms to verify the credibility of online reviews.…”

“…User-generated information comes in two formats: verbal remarks or numerical ratings, and while both styles influence consumer behaviour, they possess unique characteristics (Park et al, 2021). Customers can convey their thoughts, emotions, and evaluations through spoken comments, providing comprehensive information about the products and services, including background data and situational information relevant to each individual.…”

“…Online reviews play a crucial role in helping buyers to have a comparative product and service analysis before making purchase decisions (Fernandes et al, 2022; Guo et al, 2020; Wu & Liao, 2021). Consumers tend to trust user reviews 12 times more than what the brand says about the product and are willing to pay more for products or services with better ratings (Park et al, 2021). Online customer reviews have a positive effect on the behavioural intention to use mobile food ordering applications (Rita et al, 2023).…”

Do Online Reviews Encourage Customers to Write Online Reviews? A Longitudinal Study

“…Research demonstrates that customer perceptions change over time [5]. Since online reviews in the hospitality industry are critical for reducing uncertainty [6][7][8], it remains unclear how the evolution of online reviews affects its outcomes and what dynamics of change are significant. This leads us to examine the changes in online reviews and their outcomes, suggesting that a complete understanding of the dynamic nature of constructs is essential [9,10].…”