• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.295-311
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• 2023

Purpose - This study investigates how review length and sentiment impact consumers' purchase intentions, using real online reviews as the data source. The study aims to understand how the length and tone of a review affect a potential buyer's decision-making process when considering a purchase. Design/methodology/approach - A 2 (comment length: long vs. short) × 2 (comment sentiment: positive vs. negative) × 2 (product type: practical vs. hedonic) experiment was conducted. Findings - Results indicate that longer reviews have a greater impact on consumers' perceived usefulness compared to short reviews, but do not affect purchase intentions. Review sentiment is found to have a stronger impact than review length, especially for negative sentiment. The study also suggests that consumers pay more attention to reviews of practical products, and that reviews have less influence on hedonic products. Research implications or Originality - The implications of these findings are relevant for both merchants managing reviews and consumers reviewing products.The results of this research could help businesses and marketers optimize their online review strategies to maximize their impact on consumer behavior.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.25-57
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• 2012

This study identified motives for writing apparel product reviews in online stores, and determined what motives increase the behavior of writing reviews. It also classified store customers based on the type of writing motives, and clarified the characteristics of internet purchase behavior and of a demographic profile. Data were collected from 252 females aged 20s' and 30s' who have experience of reading and writing reviews on online shopping. The five types of writing motives were altruistic information sharing, remedying of a grievance and vengeance, economic incentives, helping new product development, and the expression of satisfaction feelings. Among five motives, altruistic information sharing, economic incentives, and helping new product development stimulate writing reviews. Store customers who write reviews were classified into three groups based on their writing motive types: Other consumer advocates(29.8%), self-interested shoppers(40.5%) and shoppers with moderate motives(29.8%). There were significant differences among three groups in writing behavior (the frequency of writing reviews, writing intent of reviews, duration of writing reviews, and frequency of online shopping) and age. Based on results, managerial implications were suggested. Long Abstract : The purpose of present study is to identify the types of writing motives on online shopping, and to clarify the motives affecting the behavior of writing reviews. This study also classifies online shoppers based on the motive types, and identifies the characteristics of the classified groups in terms of writing behavior, frequency of online shopping, and demographics. Use and Gratification Theory was adopted in this study. Qualitative research (focus group interview) and quantitative research were used. Korean women(20 to 39 years old) who reported experience with purchasing clothing online, and reading and writing reviews were selected as samples(n=252). Most of the respondents were relatively young (20-34yrs., 86.1%,), single (61.1%), employed(61.1%) and residents living in big cities(50.9%). About 69.8% of respondents read and 40.5% write apparel reviews frequently or very frequently. 24.6% of the respondents indicated an "average" in their writing frequency. Based on the qualitative result of focus group interviews and previous studies on motives for online community activities, measurement items of motives for writing after-purchase reviews were developed. All items were used a five-point Likert scale with endpoints 1 (strongly disagree) and 5 (strongly agree). The degree of writing behavior was measured by items concerning experience of writing reviews, frequency of writing reviews, amount of writing reviews, and intention of writing reviews. A five-point scale(strongly disagree-strongly agree) was employed. SPSS 18.0 was used for exploratory factor analysis, K-means cluster analysis, one-way ANOVA(Scheffe test) and ${\chi}^2$-test. Confirmatory factor analysis and path model analysis were conducted by AMOS 18.0. By conducting principal components factor analysis (varimax rotation, extracting factors with eigenvalues above 1.0) on the measurement items, five factors were identified: Altruistic information sharing, remedying of a grievance and vengeance, economic incentives, helping new product development, and expression of satisfaction feelings(see Table 1). The measurement model including these final items was analyzed by confirmatory factor analysis. The measurement model had good fit indices(GFI=.918, AGFI=.884, RMR=.070, RMSEA=.054, TLI=.941) except for the probability value associated with the ${\chi}^2$ test(${\chi}^2$=189.078, df=109, p=.00). Convergent validities of all variables were confirmed using composite reliability. All SMC values were found to be lower than AVEs confirming discriminant validity. The path model's goodness-of-fit was greater than the recommended limits based on several indices(GFI=.905, AGFI=.872, RMR=.070, RMSEA=.052, TLI=.935; ${\chi}^2$=260.433, df=155, p=.00). Table 2 shows that motives of altruistic information sharing, economic incentives and helping new product development significantly increased the degree of writing product reviews of online shopping. In particular, the effect of altruistic information sharing and pursuit of economic incentives on the behavior of writing reviews were larger than the effect of helping new product development. As shown in table 3, online store shoppers were classified into three groups: Other consumer advocates (29.8%), self-interested shoppers (40.5%), and moderate shoppers (29.8%). There were significant differences among the three groups in the degree of writing reviews (experience of writing reviews, frequency of writing reviews, amount of writing reviews, intention of writing reviews, and duration of writing reviews, frequency of online shopping) and age. For five aspects of writing behavior, the group of other consumer advocates who is mainly comprised of 20s had higher scores than the other two groups. There were not any significant differences between self-interested group and moderate group regarding writing behavior and demographics.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.784-804
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• 2015

This study investigates the effects of a two-sided message on product attitude and purchase intention by using a message structure variable, such as attribute importance in the context of online consumer reviews (OCRs). Study 1 explains the previous inconsistent results of a two-side message by comparing a one-side message and a two-side message by using the attribute importance in negative reviews. Study 2 determines the reasons for the inconsistent results of a refutational two-sided message research by using the attribute importance in negative reviews and website trust. Two experiments are designed to test our hypotheses. The first experiment is a $2{\times}2$ factorial design with 84 participants. The second experiment uses a $2{\times}2{\times}2$ factorial design with 196 participants. In study 1, two-sided OCRs are more credible than one-sided OCRs, and two-sided OCRs that use low important attributes are more effective in making favorable product attitude/purchase intention. In study 2, refutational two-sided OCRs that use high attribute importance render positive effects on product attitudes in trustworthy websites. However, the refutation could negatively affect product attitude/purchase intention in low trustworthy websites.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.17-37
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• 2010

Currently, online searching sites offer a variety of services such as just sorting by price, manufacturer, sorting by release date for sale as well as the product reviews to help and enjoy online shopping provided consumers with more shopping information. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of online product reviews attributes (informativeness and usefulness) and familiarity on consumers' loyalty in online product searching site via trust and satisfaction. To identify these relationships, the secondary data or past studies were collected and theoretically arranged. I made the theoretical proposed model to explain the relationships between the constructs, identify the operational definitions and 8 Hypotheses were established, there was executed the survey of 175 customers. As the result of test that make the relations of used variables clear, i can get the conclusion; site familiarity and informativeness, Usefulness of online reviews have the positive effect empirically on trust building and loyalty. From the empirical test, i suggest the strategic advices in online product searching site. To increase the consumers' loyalty, it would be developed that a variety of methods and ways to raise the site familiarity and informativeness, usefulness in online product reviews. It is necessary for sticking the consumers to raise the positive trust building and satisfaction. The results of this study would help companies operating the online product searching site.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.121-128
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• 2015

A given product's online product reviews build up to form largely positive or negative reviews or mixed reviews that include both the positive and negative reviews. While the homogeneously positive or negative reviews help readers identify the generally praised or criticized product, the mixed reviews with minority opinions potentially contain valuable information about the product. We present a method of retrieving minority opinions from the online product reviews using the skewness of positive/negative reviews. The proposed method first classifies the positive/negative product reviews using a sentiment dictionary and then calculates the skewness of the classified results to identify minority reviews. Minority review retrieval experiments were conducted on smartphone and movie reviews, and the F1-measures were 24.6% (smartphone) and 15.9% (movie) and the accuracies were 56.8% and 46.8% when the individual reviews' sentiment classification accuracies were 85.3% and 78.8%. The theoretical performance of minority review retrieval is also discussed.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.65-75
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• 2020

Purpose: This study aims to examine how to review contents of experiential and utilitarian products (e.g., skincare products) and how to affect review helpfulness by applying natural language processing techniques. Research design, data, and methodology: This study uses 69,633 online reviews generated for the products registered at Amazon.com by 13 Korean cosmetic firms. The authors identify key topics that emerge about consumers' use of skincare products such as skin type and skin trouble, by applying bigram analysis. The review content variables are included in the review helpfulness model, including other important determinants. Results: The estimation results support the positive effect of review extremity and content on the helpfulness. In particular, the reviewer's skin type information was recognized as highly useful when presented together as a basis for high-rated reviews. Moreover, the content related to skin issues positively affects review helpfulness. Conclusions: The positive relationship between extreme reviews and helpfulness of reviews challenges the findings from prior literature. This result implies that an in-depth study of the effect of product types on review helpfulness is needed. Furthermore, a positive effect of review content on helpfulness suggests that applying big data analytics can provide meaningful customer insights in the online retail industry.

• Informatization Policy
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.3-17
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• 2013

As electronic marketplaces grow and a large number of consumers exchange their opinions on products and services on the Internet, many studies have been conducted in the area of online consumer reviews. This paper analyzes the research trend of the online consumer reviews by investigating those studies in an attempt to provide future research directions. Many researchers have focused on the effects of online reviews on consumer behaviors as well as the usefulness of the online reviews. In particular, review contents, characteristics of reviewers/consumers and features of products/services have been identified as influencing factors on the effects of the online consumer reviews. For the review contents, the number and the volume of the contents have increasing effects on the online reviews, while the direction (positive vs. negative) of the contents has resulted in conflicting effects of the review. The reputation and trustfulness of reviewers, consumers' prior knowledge on the products, consumers' product involvement, and types of the products were investigated as these factors influence the effectiveness of the online consumer reviews. Social media (such as Facebook and Twitter) nowadays play an important role to disseminate online reviews among consumers. Thus, it is necessary to study how social media influence the effects of online reviews on consumers. Since some firms abuse the online reviews for their own sakes, we recognize the necessity for empirical studies on the side effects of the online reviews.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.1702-1716
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• 2015

Customer product reviews have become great influencers of purchase decision making. To assist potential customers, online stores provide various ways to sort customer reviews. Different methods have been developed to identify and recommend useful reviews to customers, primarily using feedback provided by customers about the helpfulness of reviews. Most of the methods consider the preferences of all users to determine whether reviews are helpful, and all users receive the same recommendations.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.81-91
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• 2018

A counterfeit product is a product that pretends to be a genuine product by pretending to be false. It can also be called a counterfeit product. This study attempts to investigate how such illegal floods of counterfeit goods affect online shopping consumers. In addition, the accessibility of various product reviews on the internet is increasing, and the product reviews are divided into positive and negative reviews, affecting the information that the customer has already, and the influence of the information acceptance on the purchase intention depending on the product involvement Respectively. Therefore, the focus of this study was to examine whether the information presentation about counterfeit products affects consumers' purchase intention, review direction (positive / negative), and involvement (high / low) control the information about counterfeit products. Therefore, this study has shown that it provides a marketing strategy to increase the intention to purchase products and products in online companies and stores in a situation where information about counterfeits is exposed to online consumers in China market.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.113-125
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• 2017

Customers have been affected by others' opinions when they make a purchase. Thanks to the development of technologies, people are sharing their experiences such as reviews or ratings through online or social network services, However, although ratings are intuitive information for others, many reviews include only texts without ratings. Also, because of huge amount of reviews, customers and companies can't read all of them so they are hard to evaluate to a product without ratings. Therefore, in this study, we propose a methodology to predict ratings based on reviews for a product. In a methodology, we first estimate the topic-review matrix using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation technic which is widely used in topic modeling. Next, we predict ratings based on the topic-review matrix using the artificial neural network model which is based on the backpropagation algorithm. Through experiments with actual reviews, we find that our methodology can predict ratings based on customers' reviews. And our methodology performs better with reviews which include certain opinions. As a result, our study can be used for customers and companies that want to know exactly a product with ratings. Moreover, we hope that our study leads to the implementation of future studies that combine machine learning and topic modeling.