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Product Evaluations Online: Search vs. Experience Goods

In this study the dynamics of online product ratings is modeled based on the data for 59 items from 20 product categories. We account not only for the context dependence of subsequent reviews on previously posted reviews, but also for product type (search product or experience product). We demonstrate that most consumer electronics and appliances items sold online are predominantly experience goods and provide a possible explanation for this. The comparison of search and experience goods revealed that review features (such as the length of the advantages and disadvantages sections, the number of likes and dislikes of the review, etc.) differ by product type. Using an ordinal logistic regression we identified that, other things equal, experience goods receive significantly lower ratings than search goods. A number of other non-trivial effects have been found including the “fear of criticism effect” reflecting the influence of the number of dislikes that a review receives from other users on product evaluation made by the next reviewer. It appeared that the tendency to disagree with the prevailing opinion (measured by the average rating) or with the previous author’s opinion which was detected for the US book market in one of the recent studies does not generalize to the markets for consumer electronics and appliances. We discuss briefly, how information about the predictors of the dynamics of online reviews can help marketers design legal ways to increase product ratings.