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Online consumer reviews and sales: Examining the chicken‐egg relationships
Author(s) -
Ren Jie,
Yeoh William,
Shan Ee Mong,
Popovič Aleš
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of the association for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.903
H-Index - 145
eISSN - 2330-1643
pISSN - 2330-1635
DOI - 10.1002/asi.23967
Subject(s) - purchasing , marketing , causality (physics) , business , consumer behaviour , advertising , economics , quantum mechanics , physics
This article examines the “chicken‐egg” two‐way relationships between online consumer reviews and sales, and assesses the dual influencer and indicator roles of online consumer reviews in relation to purchase behavior. Considering the time factor, we adopt the methodology of Granger causality test and track 3,390 products on Amazon.com over a 2‐month period. The results reveal that a causality loop exists between online consumer review volume and sales. Specifically, our findings indicate that the volume of negative consumer reviews drive consumers' purchasing decisions, but the volume of positive consumers reviews only marginally affects purchasing decisions. Also, consumers generate more positive reviews than negative reviews after sales. Our results highlight the importance of negative consumer reviews; negative reviews not only lead to sales, but sales, in turn, lead to higher volume of negative reviews. The findings suggest an alternative strategy for practitioners to address negative online consumer reviews and highlight the awareness effect of online consumer review postings that can later convert into purchase behaviors.