An item’s very first evaluation can have an outsized impact on the product’s future — it can even trigger the item to stop working. Credit: Shannon Alexander/University of Florida
The Strange Impact of the First Consumer Review
If you’re about to purchase something online and its only consumer evaluation is unfavorable, you’d most likely reevaluate the purchase, right? It ends up an item’s very first evaluation can have an outsized impact on the product’s future — it can even trigger the item to stop working.
Shoppers, sellers and producers alike feel the results of consumer evaluations. Researchers at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business took a look at the impact of the very first evaluation after seeing the specific very same items getting favorable evaluations on one merchant’s site however unfavorable evaluations on others, stated Sungsik Park, Ph.D., who studied the phenomenon as a doctoral trainee at UF.
“Why would a product receive a 4.7-star rating with 100 reviews on Amazon, but only four or five reviews with a two-star rating Walmart or BestBuy?” Park questioned.
To discover, Park — now an assistant teacher at the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina — partnered with UF teachers Jinhong Xie, Ph.D., and Woochoel Shin, Ph.D., to examine what may trigger the variation. By comparing similar vacuum, toasters, and digital cams on Amazon and Best Buy, they had the ability to separate the very first evaluation as the variable in how the item fared. They revealed that the very first evaluation can impact an item’s general evaluations for approximately 3 years, affecting both the quantity and the tone of later evaluations.
“The first review has the potential to sway the entire evolution path of online consumer reviews,” Shin stated.
How could one evaluation have such a long lasting effect? When the very first evaluation on a seller’s website was favorable, the item went on to amass a bigger variety of evaluations in general, and they were most likely to be favorable. When an item got an unfavorable very first evaluation, less individuals wanted to gamble on purchasing it, so it had less chances to get favorable evaluations, producing a sticking around effect from the very first dissatisfied consumer.
“Once you think about how user reviews are generated, it makes sense,” Park stated.
The findings, released in the journal Marketing Science, recommend that sellers and producers ought to take actions to find unfavorable very first evaluations and reduce their effect.
Firms normally monitor their online evaluations and assess their techniques appropriately, Xie discussed. “However, they do so by focusing on average rating rather than a single rating, and after the product has sufficient time to be evaluated by consumers. Our research suggests that firms need to pay attention to a special single review (i.e., the first one) as soon as it is posted.”
Consumers, on the other hand, may wish to examine several websites’ evaluations prior to they eliminate an item. If you’re taking a look at numerous websites to compare rates, Park recommends window shopping evaluations, too. (For huge ticket products, Park likewise checks third-party evaluations like Consumer Reports.)
Because consumers think about user evaluates more credible than details from marketing, it’s important to comprehend the aspects that might alter those scores.
“We want consumers to know that this information can be easily distorted,” Park stated.
Reference: “The Fateful First Consumer Review” by Sungsik Park, Woochoel Shin and Jinhong Xie, 3 February 2021, Marketing Science.
DOI: 10.1287/mksc.2020.1264
