Start Date
11-12-2016 12:00 AM
Description
In this work we investigate how the introduction of the Verified Purchase (VP) badge on Amazon.com affected both the review helpfulness and the product ratings. We first conduct a propensity score matching study and find that all else equal, camera reviews are on average ranked 7 positions higher than non-VP reviews, while book VP reviews are on average ranked 11 positions higher than non-VP reviews. Next, we use a natural experiment setting to identify whether the entry of the VP feature had an effect on the (1) overall review helpfulness (both VP and non-VP reviews), and (2) average product rating. Our results show that the introduction of VP caused an increase in review helpfulness of 7.7% for books, and 1.7% for electronics. Furthermore, it caused on average an increase of 20 and 18 positions in the ranks on book and electronic products respectively.
Recommended Citation
Kokkodis, Marios and Lappas, Theodoros, "The Relationship Between Disclosing Purchase Information and Reputation Systems in Electronic Markets" (2016). ICIS 2016 Proceedings. 16.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2016/EBusiness/Presentations/16
The Relationship Between Disclosing Purchase Information and Reputation Systems in Electronic Markets
In this work we investigate how the introduction of the Verified Purchase (VP) badge on Amazon.com affected both the review helpfulness and the product ratings. We first conduct a propensity score matching study and find that all else equal, camera reviews are on average ranked 7 positions higher than non-VP reviews, while book VP reviews are on average ranked 11 positions higher than non-VP reviews. Next, we use a natural experiment setting to identify whether the entry of the VP feature had an effect on the (1) overall review helpfulness (both VP and non-VP reviews), and (2) average product rating. Our results show that the introduction of VP caused an increase in review helpfulness of 7.7% for books, and 1.7% for electronics. Furthermore, it caused on average an increase of 20 and 18 positions in the ranks on book and electronic products respectively.