Understanding Product Reviews: Information Search in Online Review Systems

Abstract

While many consumers rely heavily on online reviews during their purchases, it is unrealistic to expect a consumer to read every online review and make an informed decision. Many online review systems provide summary views in the form of overall sentiment scores or rating distributions (e.g., Amazon, Alibaba etc.). While consumers rely on such high-level views that summarize the opinions of many, they also read individual reviews to understand the nature of the overall sentiment. In a way, product details, overall sentiment summaries and individual reviews form a network of information that users explore to make their purchase decisions. This work studies the user behavior when they are exploring this network of product and sentiment information; and how it may relate to online sales.

Keywords: Online review system, search behavior