AI and Analytics for Business

Research Opportunities

(Closed for Submission)

He Said, She Bought: Analyzing the Impact of User-Generated Reviews on Purchase Behavior

AI and Analytics for Business is thrilled to announce a new and comprehensive dataset sponsored by Bazaarvoice, one of America’s largest social marketing companies specializing in user-generated product reviews. The data are collected from a UK-based big box retailer, and contain all website visits, product page views, reviews read, and purchases made by tens of thousands of customers, giving researchers an unprecedented opportunity to look at how customers shop for products in several popular categories.

The dataset includes:

  • Complete clickstream data for customers shopping the retailer’s website
  • Records of which product pages the customer viewed, including details such as the number of reviews and average rating
  • Information about any reviews the customer read, including the date and time when the review was seen, the ordinal position of the review on the page, the text of the review, and whether or not it was viewed on a mobile device
  • How the user engaged with the review, such as clicking “read more”
  • Purchases made by the customer, including the product identifier, date & time of the purchase, number of items, and total price paid for the order

Through this Research Opportunity, Bazaarvoice hopes to gain insight into the effect reviews have on a customer’s online shopping and purchase behavior.

Research questions might include:

  • How do customers consider product offerings (both individual products and the category as a whole) before coming to a purchase decision?
  • How do reviews affect this? Can reviews be categorized into types based on how they influence customers? How does the volume or valence of reviews impact product consideration?
  • Does the volume or valence of reviews for one product have a “halo” effect on reviews for other products by the same manufacturer?
  • Which reviews should be prominently featured by the retailer in order to maximize conversion and/or attract the most valuable customers?

Note: This Research Opportunity is closed for proposal submissions.

Research Teams

Grantees of the Data:

 

PLATFORM EFFECTS ON CONSUMER SEARCH AND DECISION MAKING

Hongju Liu, University of Connecticut
Nicholas Lurie, University of Connecticut
Sam Ransbotham, Boston College

THE VALUE OF “CONTENT” IN USER-GENERATED “CONTENT”

Xiao Liu, New York University
Kannan Srinivasan, Carnegie Mellon University

THE EFFECT OF REVIEW POSITION ON PURCHASE LIKELIHOOD WHEN CONSUMERS HAVE LIMITED ATTENTION

Prasad Vana, London Business School
Anja Lambrecht, London Business School

THE NAYSAYERS: CONTRARIAN REVIEWS AND CONSUMER SEARCH

Mingfeng Lin, University of Arizona

HE YELLED, SHE SMILED: THE ROLE OF EMOTIONS IN CONSUMER REVIEWS

Yuping Liu-Thompkins, Old Dominion University
Anh Dang, Old Dominion University

PRODUCTIVE AT WORK AND LIVELY AT PLAY? DIFFERENTIAL EFFECTIVENESS OF UTILITARIAN AND HEDONIC PRODUCT APPEALS DURING WORK AND NON-WORK HOURS

Dilip Soman, University of Toronto
Avi Goldfarb, University of Toronto
Joonkyung Kim, University of Toronto
Jun Bum Kwon, University of Toronto

HOW DO ONLINE REVIEWS INFLUENCE CUSTOMERS’ PATH TO PURCHASE?

Stanislav Stakhovych, Monash University
Satheesh Seenivasan, Monash University
Peter Danaher, Monash University

THE EFFECT OF USER GENERATED CONTENT (UGC) USAGE ON CONSIDERATION SET FORMATION: FIXED V. MOBILE DEVICES

David Muir, University of Delaware
Yi-Lin Tsai, University of Delaware

ANALYZING THE SPILLOVER EFFECTS OF USER-GENERATED REVIEWS ON PURCHASES

Young Kwark, University of Florida
Gene Moo Lee, University of Texas at Arlington
Paul Pavlou, Temple University
Liangfei Qiu, University of Florida

THE STORY BEHIND THE WORDS: HOW THE TEXTUAL INFORMATION TOGETHER WITH THE NUMERICAL RATINGS AFFECT INDIVIDUAL PURCHASE DECISIONS

Verena Schoenmueller, Columbia Business School
Oded Netzer, Columbia Business School
Florian Stahl, University of Mannheim

STRATEGIES AGAIN INFORMATION BIAS FROM REVIEWS FOR BOTH NEW AND MATURE PRODUCT

Chris Gu, University of Chicago
Yike Wang, University of Chicago

SHOCKED BY WHAT PEOPLE WRITE? HOW THE ORDER OF CUSTOMER REVIEWS AFFECTS ONLINE SEARCH AND PURCHASE

Paulo Albuquerque, INSEAD
Marton Varga, INSEAD

REVIEWS VS. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACT OF COMPLEMENTARY USER-GENERATED CONTENT TECHNOLOGIES ON THE ZERO MOMENT OF TRUTH

Chris Dellarocas, Boston University
Georgios Zervas, Boston University