• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.21-32
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• 2017

This study analyzes the variable consumer characteristics that influence the intention to use online product reviews. In online e-commerce, where purchases take place without consumers seeing the products in person, the product reviews left by other consumers who have already purchased the product are believed to be valuable information. However, when different consumers read the same product review, their responses to it may vary. This study analyzes the characteristics of consumers who utilize product reviews for their purchases. Consumer characteristics are categorized into personal information, personality, purchasing tendency, and experience related to product reviews. These factors are examined to see if they have direct or indirect effects on a consumer's intention to use product reviews when making online purchases. We surveyed a total of 240 consumers who had experience using e-commerce and knew about online product reviews. Once the data was collected, path analysis was conducted using the statistics tool AMOS. The study results reveal that consumers who are female, extroverted, and have higher price sensitivity think that product reviews left by others are useful, and that this "perceived usefulness" has a positive effect on the intention to use product reviews for making online purchasing decisions. In addition, consumers who are agreeable to others, have high brand sensitivity, and who have left numerous reviews themselves demonstrated the tendency to trust reviews left by others more. Thus, we conclude that this "perceived reliability" makes it more likely that a consumer will use product reviews when making online purchasing decisions. Future research can be done to develop this study further by analyzing whether providing online product reviews corresponding to the personal characteristics of consumers enhances the effect of product reviews on online purchasing decisions.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.159-177
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• 2022

Purpose Online reviews are critical for sales of online shopping platforms because they provide useful information to consumers. As the eCommerce market grows rapidly, the role of online reviews is becoming more important. The purpose of this study is to analyze how online reviews written by domestic consumers affect product sales by classifying the types of products. Design/methodology/approach This study analyzed how the effects of review characteristics(reviewer reputation, reviewer exposure, review length, time, rating, image, and emotional score) on the usefulness of online reviews differ depending on the product types. Subsequently, how the impact of review attributes (review usefulness, number of reviews, ratings, and emotional scores) on product sales differs according to each product type was compared. Based on the FCB Grid model, the product type was classified into high involvement-rational, high involvement-emotional, low involvement -rational, and low involvement-emotional product types. Findings According to the analysis result, the characteristics of reviews useful to consumers were different for each product type, and the review attributes affecting product sales were also different for each product type. This study confirmed that it revealed that product characteristics are major consideration in evaluating the review usefulness and the factors affecting product sales.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.85-94
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• 2019

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of customer's communication on sales performance in the online market. Research design, data, and methodology - This study uses linear regression analysis to examine the effects of product review characteristics which are the result of customer's communication, on sales performance by using product reviews of online marketplace Amazon. Result - The increase in the number of product reviews positively affected sales performance. An increase in extreme opinions in the product review has a positive effect on sales performance. The product review length has a negative effect on sales performance. Conclusions - This study has shown the online marketplace customers' communication can influence sales performance using product review big data. This study contributed to the theoretical completeness by analyzing all the products of the book category in Amazon online market. This research will complement the theories regard to the customer behavior affecting sales performance. We expect the empirical analysis result will provide empirical help to sellers, online marketplace operators, and customers. In particular, the number of letters in the product may negatively affect sales performance, so sellers need to consider this effect carefully when exposing product reviews.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.449-476
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• 2016

This study examines how an initially perceived product value affects consumer's purchase intention after reading online reviews with various tones. The study proposes that associations among initially perceived overall product value, degree of confirmation resulting from reading the reviews, and final purchase intention differ across review tones such that 1) when the tone is favorable, the effect of an initially perceived product value is stronger than when the tone is critical, and 2) when the tone is extreme, the effect of confirmation is stronger than when the tone is moderate. The survey was conducted with 276 online shopping mall users in Korea, and most of the hypotheses were supported. This study asserts that the effects of online reviews should be considered together with customer's level of expectation formed prior to reading online reviews, which resulted from extensive search and screening processes that the customer went through before reading online reviews.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.49-62
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• 2014

The current study extends previous research by investigating the role of shopping experience and product type within the direction of online reviews and information reliability and product attitude. To test the hypotheses, this study conducted experimental designs. Direction of online reviews and product type were manipulated as between-subject factors. Then participants were classified into high or low group based on their shopping frequency. Dependent variable was information reliability and product attitude. The results indicate that direction of online reviews have a significant effect on both information reliability and product attitude. In addition, consumers' shopping experience also shows a moderating effect between the direction of online reviews and the dependent variables. Furthermore, product type also shows a moderating effect on the information reliability, yet not on the product attitude. The results of this study contribute to the literature as a new attempt to examine the direction of online reviews in the online shopping area. We also indicated the limitations of this study, and suggested the future research directions.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.440-451
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• 2013

Because of the e-shopping market consumers now have diverse options to choose when placing their orders, and find it easy to obtain the required information through the Internet. Especially, for consumers, product reviews posted on an e-tailer's website have become more important criteria than such information available elsewhere. Hence, this study investigated the influence of the direction and evaluative contents of online reviews on consumer attitudes toward clothing products. Four types of online reviews based on direction (positive/negative) and evaluative content in review information (objective/subjective) were used in the experimental design. Further, stimulus reviews were developed. Credibility, usefulness of reviews, product preference, and purchase intention were the measured dependent variables in each of the four situations of online review presentations. The results indicated that, overall, positive and objective online reviews resulted in a higher level of consumer attitude. The content in these reviews had a relatively stronger influence than the direction on attitudes toward online reviews. Overall, objective reviews generated a higher level of credibility and usefulness of information than subjective reviews. Regarding subjective reviews, negative information was more related to credibility, whereas positive information was more related to usefulness. Further, positive information had a higher influence than negative information on consumer attitudes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.282-296
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• 2012

This study identified the types of motives for reading consumer reviews of apparel products for online stores and classified shoppers into the groups based on motives. Data were collected from eleven Korean women by a focus group interview and from 313 females by an online survey. Respondents were in their 20s' and 30s' with significant experience reading consumer reviews of apparel products for online stores. The seven motives found by interviews were reduced to four types of motives by factor analysis: Right product choice and judgment of product value, risk reduction, saving time and money, and fun/killing time. The motive for the right product choice and judgment of product value was the highest and the motive for fun/killing time was the lowest. Consumers were classified into four groups based on motives: Utilitarian shoppers (25.8%), shopping-task oriented shoppers (36.8%), multiple-motive shoppers (19.7%), and moderate-motive shoppers (17.7%). There were significant differences among age groups and the amount of reading reviews posted on a product and the duration of reading reviews for online stores. In addition, managerial implications were developed.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.763-783
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• 2015

Online customer reviews (i.e., electronic word-of-mouth) has gained considerable interest over the past years. However, a knowledge gap exists in explaining the mechanisms among the factors that determine the product sales in online retailing environment. To fill the gap, this study adopts a principal-agent perspective to investigate the effect of customer reviews and customer incentives on product sales in online retail stores. Two customer review factors (i.e., average review ratings and the number of reviews) and two customer incentive factors (i.e., price discounts and special shipping offers) are used to predict product sales in regression analysis. The sales ranking data collected from the video game titles at Amazon.com are used to analyze the direct effects of the four factors and the interaction effects between customer review and customer incentive factors to product sales. Result reveals that most relationships exist as hypothesized. The findings support both the direct and interaction effects of customer reviews and incentive factors on product sales. Based on the findings, discussions are provided with regard to the academic and practical contributions.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.13 no.12
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• pp.6097-6120
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• 2019

Online consumer reviews (OCRs) provide product information and recommendations especially pictures in reviews depict the true information about the product. This study investigates the influence of pictured reviews on online seller (for a particular product of a seller) rating with moderating effect of price, brand type (foreign vs local), goods type (experience vs search), and brand familiarity. Multiple robust linear regression analysis with moderation interaction and quadratic effect used to explain the relationship of the explanatory variables with the criterion variable. We collected cross-sectional data from the two most renowned Chinese online shopping platforms (B2C) of total 15,621 product links. Results show that higher number of reviews with a low ratio of picture reviews response negative effect on rating, whereas the lower number of reviews with a high ratio of picture reviews response positive effect on the rating. In overall picture in the reviews improve the online seller product rating. For the moderation effect, results show that price and brand familiarity have a positive interaction effect on the relation of pictured reviews and rating whereas experience goods have less negative effect comparing search goods. Finally, local brand has less negative interaction effect comparing foreign brand to pictured reviews and rating.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.67-90
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• 2008

Prior to making choices among online products and services, consumers often search online product reviews written by other consumers. Online product reviews have great influences on consumer behavior because they are believed to be more reliable than information provided by sellers. However, ever-increasing lists of product reviews make it difficult for consumers to find the right information efficiently. A customized search mechanism is a method to provide personalized information which fits the user's requirements. This study examines effects of a customized search mechanism and perceived similarity between consumers and product reviewers on consumer behaviors. More specifically, we address the following research questions: (1) Can a customized search mechanism increase perceived similarity between product review authors and readers? (2) Are product reviews perceived as more credible when product reviews were written by the authors perceived similar to them? (3) Does credibility of product reviews have a positive impact on acceptance of product reviews? (4) Does acceptance of product reviews have an influence on purchase intention of the readers? To examine these research questions, a lab experiment with a between-subject factor (whether a customized search mechanism is provided or not) design was employed. In order to enhance mundane realism and increase generalizability of the findings, the experiment sites were built based on a real online store, cherrya.com (http://www.cherrya.com/). Sixty participants were drawn from a pool that consisted of undergraduate and graduate students in a large university. Participation was voluntary; all the participants received 5,000 won to encourage their motivation and involvement in the experiment tasks. In addition, 15 participants, who selected by a random draw, received 30,000 won to actually purchase the product that he or she decided to buy during the experiment. Of the 60 participants, 25 were male and 35 were female. In examining the homogeneity between the two groups, the results of t-tests revealed no significant difference in gender, age, academic years, online shopping experience, and Internet usage. To test our research model, we completed tests of the measurement models and the structural models using PLS Graph version 3.00. The analysis confirmed individual item reliability, internal consistency, and discriminant validity of measurements. The results show that participants feel more credible when product reviews were written by the authors perceived similar to them, credibility of product reviews have a positive impact on acceptance of product reviews, and acceptance of product reviews have an influence on purchase intention of the readers. However, a customized search mechanism did not increase perceived similarity between product review authors and readers. The results imply that there is an urgent need to develop a better customized search tool in order to increase perceived similarity between product review authors and readers.