Product Review Reading and Rating Statistics: How Do They Affect Consumer Product Evaluation?

Marketers are concerned about how consumers' readings of product reviews and product rating statistics affect product evaluations. Previous studies generally regard product review content and rating statistics as affecting product evaluations independently. This may not be true. Typically, consumers enter a review section with pre-existing positive expectations about a product. When they see a negative average rating in this section, their expectancies are disconfirmed. Their surprise stemming from the disconfirmation makes them read the reviews more carefully. Thus, review reading affects product evaluation more strongly when viewing a negative average rating. Conversely, a positive average rating results in expectancy confirmation, which weakens the effect of review reading. An eye-tracking experiment using a mock-resort review section supported these predictions. These findings have implications for marketers in behavioral advertising, responding to reviews, and consumers writing reviews.