Abstract
Online reviews exert considerable influence over customer decision making. The crucial role played by particular design features of review systems on customer choice is reflected in the steady growth of research on review system design. However, little is known on review system design in a B2B environment. A key design decision for B2B online reviews is the representation of a vendor and their products. More specifically, whether customers review only the vendor in a single listing or each product separately in a dedicated listing could result in differences in reviewing behavior. Based on a unique data set from two different B2B review platforms, we study the impact of these different representations on online ratings. We hypothesize that listings that represent vendors receive higher ratings since reviewers are more aware of relational benefits when reviewing. We find support for our hypothesis, providing first guidelines for review system design for B2B environments.
Recommended Citation
Poniatowski, Martin; Neumann, Jürgen; and Kundisch, Dennis, "Reviewing the Vendor or the Product - Analyzing Vendor versus Product Representation in B2B Review Systems" (2019). AMCIS 2019 Proceedings. 11.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2019/human_computer_interact/human_computer_interact/11
Reviewing the Vendor or the Product - Analyzing Vendor versus Product Representation in B2B Review Systems
Online reviews exert considerable influence over customer decision making. The crucial role played by particular design features of review systems on customer choice is reflected in the steady growth of research on review system design. However, little is known on review system design in a B2B environment. A key design decision for B2B online reviews is the representation of a vendor and their products. More specifically, whether customers review only the vendor in a single listing or each product separately in a dedicated listing could result in differences in reviewing behavior. Based on a unique data set from two different B2B review platforms, we study the impact of these different representations on online ratings. We hypothesize that listings that represent vendors receive higher ratings since reviewers are more aware of relational benefits when reviewing. We find support for our hypothesis, providing first guidelines for review system design for B2B environments.