Exploratory Study on the Stability of Consumer Rationality in Judging Online Reviews

Consumers are often asked valuate the quality of online reviews. However, they often misjudge the true value of reviews because their thoughts on reviews are not well formed with criteria. This exploratory study conducted stylized survey-based experiments using 217 consumers. Consumers typically underestimate the value of reviews because they do not always use valuation criteria when reading reviews. The extent of such underestimations ranges from 12% to 15% for goods with objective attributes like electronic products. In addition, nearly half of the consumers revised their review valuations upon taking a second look at the same review for these goods. Close to one-third of the consumers changed their review valuations for subjective goods like music albums. Such valuation changes are specific to consumer profiles. Their predominant emotional sentiment also has a varying effect on subjective and non-subjective goods.