Manufactured opinions: The effect of manipulating online product reviews (original) (raw)
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Promotional Reviews: An Empirical Investigation of Online Review Manipulation
2012
Online reviews could, in principle, greatly improve consumers' ability to evaluate products. However, the authenticity of online user reviews remains a concern; firms have an incentive to manufacture positive reviews for their own products and negative reviews for their rivals. In this paper, we marry the diverse literature on economic subterfuge with the literature on organizational form. We undertake an empirical analysis of promotional reviews, examining both the extent to which fakery occurs and the market conditions that encourage or discourage promotional reviewing activity. Specifically, we examine hotel reviews, exploiting the organizational differences between two travel websites: Expedia.com and TripAdvisor.com. While anyone can post a review on TripAdvisor, a consumer can only post a review of a hotel on Expedia if she actually booked at least one night at the hotel through the website. We examine differences in the distribution of reviews for a given hotel between TripAdvisor and Expedia. We exploit the characteristics of a hotel's neighbor. We show that hotels with a nearby neighbor have more one-and two-star (negative) reviews on TripAdvisor relative to Expedia. We argue that the net gains from promotional reviewing are likely to be highest for independent hotels that are owned by single-unit owners and lowest for branded chain hotels that are owned by multi-unit owners. Our methodology thus isolates hotels with a disproportionate incentive to engage in promotional reviewing activity. We show that the hotel neighbors of hotels with a high incentive to fake have more one-and two-star (negative) reviews on TripAdvisor relative to Expedia than do hotels whose neighbors have a low incentive to fake. Furthermore, we show that hotels with a high incentive to fake have a greater share of five-star (positive) reviews on TripAdvisor relative to Expedia.
Examining Customer Responses to Fake Online Reviews: The Role of Suspicion and Product Knowledge
2016
Online reviews constitute a central element in modern word-of-mouth communication and can strongly influence customer purchase intention. However, customers may be also aware of that these tools can be manipulated or counterfeited, and suspicion upon the review authenticity may affect its influence. The objective of this paper is to examine the effects of suspicion about fake reviews on the effectiveness of reviews in influencing customers’ purchase intentions. The results of our empirical study show that customers who are suspicious of review authenticity find the reviews less convincing and reverse their likelihood to acquire the product. Furthermore, it holds true regardless of prior knowledge of the product.
Fake Reviews and manipulation: do Customer Reviews Matter?
2019
With the prevalence of fake reviews across web and e-commerce platforms it has become difficult for the customers to make an informed purchase decision. Considering this we examine the influence of review manipulation on customer’s purchase decision. A qualitative approach employing interviews with frequent online shoppers was employed to explore the phenomenon. The results of the study suggest that customers accord recommendations from their social network more weightage than the reviews available on an e-commerce platform. Further, we found that customers apply either or both interactive and extractive strategies to deal with review manipulation.
As the growing of e-commerce in the world, Online reviews are used to to assist the consumers toward their purchase decisions. This slit is utilized by some companies to boost their sales by manipulating the online reviews. This paper tries to find the impact given by the knowledge about manipulated online reviews to the purchase intention of the consumers and find the role of brand knowledge which are consisted of brand image and brand awareness to the purchase intentions when the consumers know that the online reviews are manipulated. The hypothesis hatched are then solved by using One-Way Anova and Regression Analysis.
Do Customers Perceive Reviews as Manipulated? A Warranting Theory Perspective
2018
Online customer reviews proved to have an influence on customer’s purchase. However, most online reviews don’t always prove effective in guiding the purchase process, because of fake reviews. While e-commerce platforms do tend to incorporate ways to counter review manipulation, customer perception on review quality is more important. In this study we aim to understand the impression mechanism of online reviews. Using warranting theory, as theoretical lens we found that textual and review characteristics play a crucial role in forming an impression amongst the customers. Further, research suggest that higher contamination of reviews influence customers to perceive reviews less authentic.
2021
We study the market for fake product reviews on Amazon.com. These reviews are purchased in large private internet groups on Facebook and other sites. We hand-collect data on these markets to characterize the types of products that buy fake reviews and then collect large amounts of data on the ratings and reviews posted on Amazon for these products, as well as their sales rank, advertising, and pricing behavior. We use this data to assess the costs and benefits of fake reviews to sellers and evaluate the degree to which they harm consumers. The theoretical literature on review fraud shows that there exist conditions when they harm consumers and other conditions where they function as simply another type of advertising. Using detailed data on product outcomes before and after they buy fake reviews we can directly determine if these are low-quality products using fake reviews to deceive and harm consumers or if they are possibly high-quality products who solicit reviews to establish reputations. We find that a wide array of products purchase fake reviews including products with many reviews and high average ratings. Soliciting fake reviews on Facebook leads to a significant increase in average rating and sales rank, but the effect disappears after roughly one month. After firms stop buying fake reviews their average ratings fall significantly and the share of one-star reviews increases significantly, indicating fake reviews are mostly used by low quality products and are deceiving and harming consumers. We also observe that Amazon deletes large numbers of reviews and we document their deletion policy.
Manipulation of online reviews: An analysis of ratings, readability, and sentiments
Decision Support Systems, 2012
As consumers become increasingly reliant on online reviews to make purchase decisions, the sales of the product becomes dependent on the word of mouth (WOM) that it generates. As a result, there can be attempts by firms to manipulate online reviews of products to increase their sales. Despite the suspicion on the existence of such manipulation, the amount of such manipulation is unknown, and deciding which reviews to believe in is largely based on the reader's discretion and intuition. Therefore, the success of the manipulation of reviews by firms in generating sales of products is unknown. In this paper, we propose a simple statistical method to detect online reviews manipulation, and assess how consumers respond to products with manipulated reviews. In particular, the writing style of reviewers is examined, and the effectiveness of manipulation through ratings, sentiments, and readability is investigated. Our analysis examines textual information available in online reviews by combining sentiment mining techniques with readability assessments. We discover that around 10.3% of the products are subject to online reviews manipulation. In spite of the deliberate use of sentiments and ratings in manipulated products, consumers are only able to detect manipulation taking place through ratings, but not through sentiments. The findings from this research ensue a note of caution for all consumers that rely on online reviews of books for making purchases, and encourage them to delve deep into the book reviews without being deceived by fraudulent manipulation.
Innocent until proven guilty: suspicion of deception in online reviews
European Journal of Marketing
Purpose This study aims to formulate a new framework for identifying deception in consumer reviews through the lens of interpersonal deception theory (IDT) and the persuasion knowledge model (PKM). It evaluates variables contributing to consumer intentions to purchase after reading deceptive reviews and proposes deception identification cues to be incorporated into the interpersonal communication theoretical framework. Design/methodology/approach The first study is qualitative and quantitative, based on sentiment and lexical analysis of 1,000 consumer reviews. The second study uses the US national consumer survey with a partial least squares partial least squares-structural equation modeling and a process-based mediation–moderation analysis. Findings This study shows deceptive characteristics that cannot be dissimulated by reviewing consumers that represent review legitimacy based on review valence, authenticity, formalism and analytical writing. The results also support the central...