Online Reviews: Do Consumers U Them?
Patrali Chatterjee, Rutgers University
拟人句的意思ABSTRACT - The u of the WWW as a venue for voicing opinions, complaints and recommendations on products and firms has been widely reported in the popular media. However little is known how consumers u the reviews and if they subquently have any influence on evaluations and purcha intentions of products and retailers. This study examines the effect of negative reviews on retailer evaluation and patronage intention given that the consumer has already made a product/brand decision. Our results indicate that the extent of WOM arch depends on the consumer’s reasons for choosing an online retailer. Further the influence of negative WOM information on perceived reliability of retailer and purcha intentions is determined largely by familiarity with the retailer and differs bad on whether the retailer is a pure-Internet or clicks-and-mortar firm. Managerial implications for positioning strategies to minimize the effect of negative word-of-mouth have been discusd.
[ to cite ]:
Patrali Chatterjee (2001) ,"Online Reviews: Do Consumers U Them?", in NA - Advances in Consu
mer Rearch Volume 28, eds.
Mary C. Gilly and Joan Meyers-Levy, Valdosta, GA : Association for Consumer Rearch, Pages: 129-133.
Advances in Consumer Rearch Volume 28, 2001 Pages 129-133
ONLINE REVIEWS: DO CONSUMERS USE THEM?
孕高症Patrali Chatterjee, Rutgers University
ABSTRACT -
The u of the WWW as a venue for voicing opinions, complaints and recommendations on products and firms has been widely reported in the popular media. However little is known how consumers u the reviews and if they subquently have any influence on evaluations and purcha intentions of products and retailers. This study examines the effect of negative reviews on retailer evaluation and patronage intention given that the consumer has already made a product/brand decision. Our results indicate that the extent of WOM arch depends on the consumer’s reasons for choosing an online retailer. Further the influence of negative WOM information on perceived reliabilit
y of retailer and purcha intentions is determined largely by familiarity with the retailer and differs bad on whether the retailer is a pure-Internet or clicks-and-mortar firm. Managerial implications for positioning strategies to minimize the effect of negative word-of-mouth have been discusd.
Rearch on word of mouth (WOM) effects provides plenty of evidence that a satisfied customer may tell some people about his experience with a company, but a dissatisfied one will tell everybody he meets. Virtual communities with active members who provide evaluations and opinions on products and firms now provide a venue to tell the world and reprent one of the fastest growing phenomena on the Web (Armstrong and Hagel 1996). It is not surprising therefore, that providing consumers a venue to voice their opinions, recommendations and complaints and monitoring this word-of-mouth activity has become a business and some firms pay (in cash, points, recognition) consumers for their contributions (Tedeschi 1999) since they can be ud as instrument to compete for consumer attention and visits (e.g., eBay, Oxygen Media). While some reports in the popular media provide anecdotal evidence that companies are listening, little is known if complaints and reviews posted at Web sites are instrumental in changing purcha decisions of consumers who read them. In this rearch we investigate if negative WOM information or reviews of online retailers affect evaluations and patronage intentions.
Online Consumer Reviews as Word-of-Mouth Information
《民法通则》Online word of mouth activity differs from tho in the real world in many aspects. In the marketing literature WOM communication is "oral, person-to-person communication between a receiver and a communicator whom the receiver perceives as noncommercial, regarding a brand, a product, a rvice or a provider" (Arndt 1967, p. 5). Adapting this definition to be relevant to the online medium requires reference to online communication modes (e-mail and hypertext), the existence of remote many-to-many communication (most WOM information are from strangers who have never met or will in the future, e.g. ). The non-commercial focus may not be certain. Most of the online forums point out that while they do not edit consumer comments, some get paid for referrals or purchas and/or get advertising income from target firms. Further, word-of-mouth information available online is far more voluminous in quantity compared to information obtained from traditional contacts in the offline world and includes veral units of positive and negative information prented together from multiple sources at the same time as oppod to a single piece of information that is either positive or negative in valence.
The underlying benefit consumers derive from availability of other consumers’ evaluations in online virtual communities is the scale advantages they experience in going through their purcha decisio栩字取名的寓意
n making. Word of mouth information on the Internet exists in various forms that differ in accessibility, scope and source. Despite popular wisdom that all content on the Web is accessible, the immen volume and variety of information available online and time constraints faced by the consumer provide opportunities for manufacturers and retailers to make some word-of mouth information more easily accessible compared to others by placing them clo to purcha information. Reviews (actual ur comments) or ratings (on a scale) of product or retailers conveniently provided along with purcha information at online stores and comparison shopping agents reprent the most accessible and prevalent form. In contrast, USENET groups exist independently from purcha information, are relatively less under marketer control but require prior knowledge of their existence and conscious effort by the consumer (e.g., ).
Consumer evaluations may differ in scope by pertaining to either products or retailers. While most online retailers feature evaluations of products, reviews of online and offline retailers are generally provided by comparison shopping rvices (e.g., ) and e-business rating rvices (e.g., ). While some offline sources of product comparison information (e.g., Consumer Reports) are popular, similar information and reviews of retailers are practically unavailable (Sinha 2000). Hence, online sources of retailer information are widely ud for both offline and online purchas and the topic of investigation in this rearch.
Effects of Product Reviews on Purcha Decisions
Rearch in marketing literature points out that WOM information plays an important role in hybrid decision process or recommendation-bad heuristics in which the decision maker obtains recommendations for the purpo of reducing the uncertainty and amount of information that must be procesd to make a decision (Olshavsky and Granbois 1979). The conquences of WOM communication occur in the behavior of tho who receive it B their awareness, beliefs, attitudes and actual decisions. Rearch on the potency of WOM information indicates that the inferences people draw are contingent upon their receptivity to the WOM information (Wilson and Peterson 1989). A substantial literature documents the mediating influence of the receiver’s predisposition towards the target of WOM communication on receptivity to and interpretation of new information. The stronger an individual’s feelings or confidence in choice prior to
exposure to WOM information, the more the feelings will dominate the interpretation and u of WOM information. Hence criteria ud by consumers in product decision or choice drivers play an important part in determining if and how much of WOM information is obtained and the influence of the WOM information on product evaluation and purcha decision.
WOM sources usually studied in the marketing literature are predominantly, though not exclusively, personal sources of information (Stewart et al. 1985) and may be strong and weak tie depending on the cloness of relationship between the decision maker and the recommendation source (Brown and Reingen 1987). In the online medium however, the "tie strength" is always very weak becau recommendations are from total strangers. Unlike the ca of WOM from interpersonal sources, the online recipient cannot u source similarity, experti and accessibility to determine the credibility of information in Internet forums. Thus the theoretical framework of attribution theory (Kelly 1967) can be ud to investigate the inferences consumers draw from WOM activity of weak tie sources. The direct and indirect (through influence on person perception) effects of causal inference on product perception and purcha intention are a function of the generalizability (or connsus) of the cau across people, and the stability (or recurrence) of the cau. Figure 1 shows the process involved when consumers access WOM information or reviews online.
FIGURE 1 (/volumes/v28/28130f01.gif)
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ONLINE WOM INFORMATION EFFECTS (/volumes/v28/28130f01.gif)
PROPOSITIONS
The first rearch objective is to predict the extent of WOM information arch during an online purcha occasion bad on choice drivers behind the retailer choice decision. Next we examine the impact of negative WOM information on purcha intentions by examining the joint influence of an individual’s reasons for patronizing a firm and inferences consumers draw from the negative WOM information on retailer evaluation and purcha intention.
Choice Drivers and Extent of WOM Information Search
The online shopping medium facilitates comparison shopping by consumers, and most shopping engines permit easy arching on the basis of price. A common problem consumers face while shopping online is choosing between a familiar retail firm that appears to be an expensive but safe choice (either a well-known on-line/ offline retailer or a firm they have prior experience with) and a cheaper alternative who reliability is unknown to the consumer. Adapting the rearch on uncertainty in decision-making in brand choice to the online medium would suggest that consumers choosing an unfamiliar retailer are more likely to arch for information on the retailer to reduce their uncertainty compared to consumers choosing a familiar option (Biswas 1992). This is especially rele
vant for the online retail channel becau of curity and risk concerns and the fact that transactions are conducted remotely.
P1: Consumers who decision to patronize a firm is driven by their familiarity with the firm are less likely to arch for
WOM information voluntarily than tho who decide to buy from a retailer bad on price.
The volume of WOM information available online is far greater (some products and firms have more than 40-50 postings by consumer reviewers) than tho available through traditional contacts in the offline world. Exposure to online WOM information is totally under consumer control and is only limited by the time and cognitive constraints of the information-eker. The regret literature suggests that actions that deviate from the norm (choosing unfamiliar retailer) involves greater attribution of responsibility for the negative conquences that follow. This implies that consumers who choo an unfamiliar retailer are more likely to attribute responsibility for negative future conquences to themlves compared to consumers who patronize a familiar retailer (Simonson 1992). This anticipation of regret is expected to make consumers choosing an unfamiliar retailer arch and access more WOM information compared to consumers choosing a familiar retailer. Hence,
P2. Consumers who decision to patronize a firm is bad on familiarity with the firm will arch for less negative WOM
information compared to tho who decide to buy bad on price.
Generalizability and Stability of Negative WOM Information
Rearch in the marketing literature has been fairly consistent in assigning high credibility to WOM information in general and negative WOM in particular, becau WOM sources have nothing to gain. In a study of unfavorable product ratings, Mizerski (1982) shows that when information about an object or firm comes through the opinions or recommendations of another person, negative information may be more credible and generalizable than positive information. However, consumer perception of credibility and hence generalizability of both positive and negative WOM information available online is suspect becau of the lack of personal knowledge about the motivations of unen strangers offering recommendations and the possibility that the commercial interests of the Web site or online forum are involved. Even in the ca of independent online forums like USENET groups, reports in the popular media of firms systematically infiltrating online forums and paying students and consumers to "spread bad word" and to deflate popularity ratings of firms and products
lead to cynicism about the veracity of the WOM information. Wilson and Peterson (1989) show that evaluative predispositions toward products and firms effectively acted as filters through which word-of-mouth information flowed. Consumers who decide to patronize a retailer bad on familiarity have stronger positive feelings and are less likely to trust negative WOM information regarding the firm compared to consumers who choo retailers bad on price.
P3. Consumers who choo to patronize a retailer bad on familiarity will be less likely to perceive negative WOM
information as credible compared to consumers who choo a retailer on the basis of price.
Past studies provide evidence to the notion that consumers’ reactions to WOM communications varied by their familiarity with the target company, product or brand (Mowen 1980). Hence, consumers who decide to patronize a retailer bad on familiarity are more likely to attribute the cau of negative retailer reviews or WOM information to situational or temporary factors (i.e., holiday rush of orders affecting rvice, or local rver/technical failure). The factors are perceived less likely to recur and hence less vere compared to stable caus.
P4. Consumers who choo to patronize a retailer bad on familiarity will be more likely to perceive
the cau of negative
WOM information as unstable compared to consumers who choo on the basis of price.
凉拌花生米
Effect on Purcha Intention
There is a sizable body of evidence which suggests that the influence of negative WOM information is more potent compared to positive WOM information in influencing purcha intentions of potential buyers (Brown and Reingen 1987; Weinberger, Allen and Dillon 1980). However, since the salience of negative WOM information on purcha intention will depend on consumer’s perception of the generalizability and likelihood of recurrence of rvice failure and hence on the reasons for patronizing a firm we expect differential effects of WOM information on purcha information.
P5. Consumers who choo a retailer bad on familiarity will be less likely to change their purcha intention in
respon to negative information compared to tho who decide to buy from a retailer bad on price.
METHOD
In this rearch, we consider online WOM information in the form of retailer reviews provided by comparison shopping engines along with purcha information. To control for the confounding effect of brand features and other marketing mix factors that are difficult to capture in an experimental study and maintain participants’ involvement we confine ourlves to exploring the effect of negative reviews on decision to patronize the retailer given that a particular product (the recommended cour textbook) will be bought.红帆
Sample. Data for this study was collected from undergraduate marketing (314) and physics (105) students in two northeastern universities, with about equal number of males and females. After the first day of class in a computer lab students were asked to shop for their cour textbook online using links to comparison-shopping arch engines provided from the cour Web page. Participation was requested for 45 minutes on a voluntary basis. 38 students did not complete the entire study so their respons were discarded.
Questionnaire Stimuli. The comparison-shopping pages had pre-programmed information on price of the textbook and shipping charges. Delivery time and buy back policy were maintained same across retailers. To test for possible differences in familiarity/price effects across pure-play Internet and click-and-mortar retailers, students were divided into 2 groups. For each group of students two retail
ers were offered for consideration, actual prices were listed $2 and $20 (after shipping and handling charges) lower than the ampus bookstore (priced at $89.99). For the pure-Internet group the "familiar" retailer (A) had the highest price, while the unknown online retailer (B) had the lower price. This was done to ensure that respondents who typically shop on the basis of price will be in the unfamiliar condition (but we cannot infer price-effects). Similarly, for the clicks-and-mortar group, the "familiar" retailer (C) had the highest price, while unknown retailer (D) had the lower price. We did not consider the high familiarity - low price and low familiarity - high price situations becau experiments in an earlier parate study revealed that all subjects cho the former option. A radio button next to the link B "Get retailer reviews" was provided for each retailer (the page linked to it indicated no reviews were available at the prent time B so WOM information would not affect initial choice) and student clicks were recorded. On the next page students lected their chon retailer, and the reasons behind their choice. Initial purcha intention was recorded in terms of how likely they were to buy from the retailer on a 5-point scale (1-most likely not buy, 5-most likely buy). Respons to the open-ended question on retailer choice drivers was followed by asking students to lect the most important reason for their choice.
On the next page all subjects (including tho who had not clicked on get retailer reviews) were infor
med that an independent online forum had agreed to make consumer reviews for their chon retailer available. They were given the option to brow through as many or few reviews and could u as much or little time as needed and take a final decision at the end of the ssion. Subjects who did not want to brow through the reviews were asked to fill out their "final decision" and leave.
表格怎么放大Selection of WOM information. Selection of multiple units of WOM information was made while controlling for effects that are not the focus of study. The retailer review pages were identical for all retailers except for the change in name (bad on the respondent’s choice) and pre-programmed using actual consumer negative reviews from online forums at , www. and Since prior rearch indicates that weak-tie sources are more important for evaluation of instrumental (rather than affective) cues (Brown and Reingen 1987), and to control for differences in salience of WOM information on different attributes, we confined ourlves to comments on the retailer’s order processing issues (e.g., order form on Web site gave errors, e-mail confirmation not nt etc.) available as a link. This ction had an index page with one-line links to 30 reviews. The one-line description had the contributor’s screen name or e-mail address, and the first 3 letters of the message as in actual review sites. Respondents had to click on the link to access the actual message. At the end of each message respondents had to judge if the message was belie
vable (1-not believable at all, 5-totally believable) and stable (1-not likely to happen to me, 5- most likely to happen to me) on a 5-point scale.
On each page students had the option to end their WOM arch and "take the final decision" by clicking on a link. On the "final decision" page subjects responded to three items. First item measured if they would u online consumer reviews in their purcha decision making in the future on a 5-point scale (1-most likely not u, 5-most likely u). The cond question measured change in purcha intention compared to initial decision on a 5-point scale (1- certainly less likely to buy now, 3- as likely to buy as before, 5-certainly more likely to buy now). The third item recorded how reliable their retailer is on a rever-coded 5-point scale (1-very reliable, 5-not reliable at all). Subjects were debriefed at the end of the ssion and thanked for their participation.
Manipulation Checks: In the later part of the questionnaire, tudents were asked to indicate their level of familiarity with retailers A, B, C and D using a 9-point scale where 1=not familiar and 9=very familiar. An analysis of variance test indicated significant differences for both pure-Internet and clicks-and-mortar groups (F=123.4, p=.0001; F=106.9, p=.0001) between unfamiliar (x=1.74, x=2.23) and familiar (x=7.81, x=8.64) treatments, suggesting that brand familiarity was effectively manipulated.
TABLE 1 (/volumes/v28/28132t01.gif)
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CHOICE DRIVERS AND PROPENSITY TO VOLUNTARILY ACCESS WOM INFORMATION (/volumes/v28/28132t01.gif)
TABLE 2 (/volumes/v28/28132t02.gif)
(/volumes/v28/28132t02.gif)
CHOICE DRIVERS AND PROPENSITY TO ACCESS WOM INFORMATION (/volumes/v28/28132t02.gif)
TABLE 3 (/volumes/v28/28132t03.gif)
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EFFECT OF WOM INFORMATION ON PURCHASE INTENTION (/volumes/v28/28132t03.gif)
RESULTS
To evaluate the impact of choice drivers, respons for the most important reason for choosing a retailer were categorized into tho bad on familiarity (e.g., prior buying experience online or offline, well-known) and price-related factors. To test our propositions we combine the familiarity treatments for both groups. As can be en in Table 1, more subjects lected a retailer bad on price than familiarity. This may be particularly true of online purchas of textbooks that are standardized products, and consumers do not have an option of choosing among brands of products. Further significantly more subjects (25%, z=2.43, p>0.01) who lected their retailer on the basis of price tried to access retailer reviews on their own during their decision-making process compared to 16% of subjects who lected a retailer they were familiar with, thus supporting P1.
When subjects were informed about the availability of retailer reviews 205 (54% of total participants) subjects cho to access the recommendation ction before taking their final decision. An equal proportion of participants from both familiar (59%) and price (50%)
groups wanted to access the reviews. We found consumers who lected their retailer on the basis of price browd through significantly (t=6.02, p< 0.001) more negative reviews overall compared to tho who lected their retailer on the basis of familiarity thus supporting P2. Contrary to our expectations, Table 2 indicates that the perception of credibility of negative WOM information did not
differ across consumers who cho their retailer on the basis of price or familiarity (t=1.37, p>0.10) hence P3 is not supported. However consumers who cho their retailer on the basis of familiarity are more likely to attribute temporary caus to the rvice failures reported in reviews that will not affect their experience with the retailer compared to tho who cho a retailer bad on price. Hence our proposition regarding the perceived stability or likelihood of recurrence (P4) is supported (t=3.24, p<0.001).
As expected, consumers who lected their retailer on the basis of familiarity are less likely to change their purcha intention (t=2.26, p<0.01) on exposure to negative WOM information compared to subjects who lected the retailer offering the best price, providing support for P5. Though we do not specify any hypothesis for reliability of retailer after exposure to negative WOM we find that consumers choosing a familiar retailer are less likely to be negatively affected compared to tho who choo a retailer bad on price (t=2.87, p<0.001). In contrast, however there is no significant differene among consumers in their desire to u online reviews in the future.
Analyzing data for pure Internet and click-and-mortar retailers parately we find some differences in results. Similar to overall findings, consumers choosing a clicks-and-mortar retailer bad on familiarity display significant differences from tho choosing on the basis of price in eking less ne
gative WOM nonvoluntarily (P2 supported), and perceive problems to be less stable (P4 supported). However, contrary to overall findings, the consumers are less likely to ek negative WOM voluntarily (P1 not supported) , and do not differ significantly in changing their purcha intention. In contrast, consumers choosing among pure-Internet retailers are more susceptible to negative WOM (P1, P2, P3 and P5 supported) if they choo an umfamiliar retailer.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The prent findings suggest that for Internet retailers in general and click-and-mortar and pure Internet retailers, the deleterious impact of negative consumer reviews on perceived reliability of retailer and purcha intention is mitigated by consumer’s familiarity with the retailer. Further, consumers patronizing a familiar retailer are less receptive to negative WOM information and ek less information. Consumers choosing an unfamiliar retailer becau of a lower price ek more negative WOM information, and are more likely to believe that the problems may recur compared to consumers patronizing a firm they are familiar with.
The results have implications for consumer rvice and positioning strategies of online retailers. Firms positioning themlves as offering "the absolutely lowest price" are more susceptible to negati
ve WOM activity becau consumers find negative WOM to be more credible and likely to recur in their ca.
This is particularly true for pure-Internet retailers than for click-and-mortar firms. Click-and-mortar firms are less susceptible to negative WOM even if they are unknown. For pure-Internet retailers providing superior rvice experience and establishing an image of reliability through advertising provides better protection against negative WOM information.
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