Reviews Without a Purchase: Low Ratings, Loyal Customers, and Deception
We document that approximately 5% of product reviews on the website of a large private label retailer are submitted by customers for which there is no record they have purchased the product they are reviewing. These reviews are significantly more negative than other reviews. They are also less lik...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
American Marketing Association
2017
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/111093 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2758-0116 |
| _version_ | 1811084277991866368 |
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| author | Anderson, Eric T. Simester, Duncan |
| author2 | Sloan School of Management |
| author_facet | Sloan School of Management Anderson, Eric T. Simester, Duncan |
| author_sort | Anderson, Eric T. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | We document that approximately 5% of product reviews on the website of a large private label retailer are submitted by customers for which there is no record they have purchased the product they are reviewing. These reviews are significantly more negative than other reviews. They are also less likely to contain expressions describing the fit or feel of the items, but more likely to contain linguistic cues associated with deception. The reviews without confirmed transactions are written by over twelve thousand of the firm’s best customers, who on average have each made over 150 purchases from the firm. This makes it very unlikely that the reviews are written by the employees or agents of a competitor, suggesting that deceptive reviews may not be limited to just the strategic actions of firms. Instead, the phenomenon may be far more prevalent, extending to individual customers who have no financial incentive to influence product ratings. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:48:11Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/111093 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:48:11Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | American Marketing Association |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1110932022-10-01T11:12:38Z Reviews Without a Purchase: Low Ratings, Loyal Customers, and Deception Anderson, Eric T. Simester, Duncan Sloan School of Management Simester, Duncan We document that approximately 5% of product reviews on the website of a large private label retailer are submitted by customers for which there is no record they have purchased the product they are reviewing. These reviews are significantly more negative than other reviews. They are also less likely to contain expressions describing the fit or feel of the items, but more likely to contain linguistic cues associated with deception. The reviews without confirmed transactions are written by over twelve thousand of the firm’s best customers, who on average have each made over 150 purchases from the firm. This makes it very unlikely that the reviews are written by the employees or agents of a competitor, suggesting that deceptive reviews may not be limited to just the strategic actions of firms. Instead, the phenomenon may be far more prevalent, extending to individual customers who have no financial incentive to influence product ratings. 2017-08-31T20:04:09Z 2017-08-31T20:04:09Z 2014-06 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0022-2437 1547-7193 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/111093 Anderson, Eric T., and Simester, Duncan I. “Reviews Without a Purchase: Low Ratings, Loyal Customers, and Deception.” Journal of Marketing Research 51, 3 (June 2014): 249–269 © 2014 American Marketing Association https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2758-0116 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jmr.13.0209 Journal of Marketing Research Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf American Marketing Association Prof. Simester via Shikha Sharma |
| spellingShingle | Anderson, Eric T. Simester, Duncan Reviews Without a Purchase: Low Ratings, Loyal Customers, and Deception |
| title | Reviews Without a Purchase: Low Ratings, Loyal Customers, and Deception |
| title_full | Reviews Without a Purchase: Low Ratings, Loyal Customers, and Deception |
| title_fullStr | Reviews Without a Purchase: Low Ratings, Loyal Customers, and Deception |
| title_full_unstemmed | Reviews Without a Purchase: Low Ratings, Loyal Customers, and Deception |
| title_short | Reviews Without a Purchase: Low Ratings, Loyal Customers, and Deception |
| title_sort | reviews without a purchase low ratings loyal customers and deception |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/111093 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2758-0116 |
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