公开商品评价对销售的影响研究——产品评价的策略性展示

Integrating Multiple Opinions: Strategic Display of Product Ratings

如今,很多互联网零售商允许消费者在其网站上作出产品评分。一些卖方只公布平均评分,而其他一些卖方则选择同时公布平均评分和评分分布。在本文中,我们通过博弈论模型框架来探讨这些卖方的动机策略。通过分析评分分布对产品售价和销售额的影响,我们着力刻画公布评分分布使卖方获利的条件。结果表明,价格随着评分方差的上升而上升,而需求则可能上升也可能下降。因此,随着方差的变动,利润呈U型变化。然后,我们从固定价格市场(电影市场)收集数据,并找出实证证据来支持我们的理论预测。

Many Internet retailers today allow consumers to post product ratings on their websites. While some sellers publish only the average rating, others choose to display both the average rating and the distribution of ratings. In this paper, we first provide a theoretical model to examine when it is optimal for sellers to disclose the distribution of ratings. In our model, we allow both the average rating and the distribution of the ratings--in particular, the variance--to reflect underlying product characteristics. Our findings suggest that price increases with the variance of ratings, while demand could either increase or decrease with the variance. As a result, profit is U-shaped in the variance. A seller therefore should publicize the distribution of ratings when expecting his product to obtain an extreme variance, either low or high, as opposed to an intermediate variance. We then gather data from a fixed-price market （the motion picture industry） and a flexible-price market （the computer product industry）, and find empirical evidence that provides support for our theoretical predictions.