Especially when buying products online, the only information available is either from the manufacturer or from customers in the form of online reviews. Due to the increasing importance of online reviews, Amazon has a product tester program that writes product tester reviews in addition to previous customer online reviews. This study investigates the credibility of product tester reviews in the three core dimensions of credibility – competence, trustworthiness, and attractiveness. The authors compare customer reviews with product tester reviews in terms of their perceived credibility. Also, it is investigated whether the valence of the online reviews influences the credibility assessment. Based on an online experiment, a 2x2 between-subject-design is developed in an empirical analysis to gain empirical insights into the credibility of online reviews. The empirical analysis suggests the following main findings. Customers as authors of online reviews are rated as more credible. The authors of customer online reviews are perceived more competent, trustworthy and attractive by recipients compared to product testers. The valence of online reviews has no influence, except for the credibility dimension trustworthiness. The findings of this study enrich previous literature by showing online platforms with rating systems how customer reviews and product tester reviews are perceived by customers.
| Published in | Journal of Business and Economic Development (Volume 8, Issue 2) |
| DOI | 10.11648/j.jbed.20230802.14 |
| Page(s) | 56-68 |
| Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Copyright |
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Online Review, Credibility Dimensions, Product Tester Review, Customer Review, Source Credibility Model, Valence
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APA Style
Nadine Ampler, Nina Lehmann-Zschunke. (2023). An Empirical Comparison of the Credibility on Customer Online Reviews and Product Tester Reviews. Journal of Business and Economic Development, 8(2), 56-68. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jbed.20230802.14
ACS Style
Nadine Ampler; Nina Lehmann-Zschunke. An Empirical Comparison of the Credibility on Customer Online Reviews and Product Tester Reviews. J. Bus. Econ. Dev. 2023, 8(2), 56-68. doi: 10.11648/j.jbed.20230802.14
AMA Style
Nadine Ampler, Nina Lehmann-Zschunke. An Empirical Comparison of the Credibility on Customer Online Reviews and Product Tester Reviews. J Bus Econ Dev. 2023;8(2):56-68. doi: 10.11648/j.jbed.20230802.14
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Download@article{10.11648/j.jbed.20230802.14,
author = {Nadine Ampler and Nina Lehmann-Zschunke},
title = {An Empirical Comparison of the Credibility on Customer Online Reviews and Product Tester Reviews},
journal = {Journal of Business and Economic Development},
volume = {8},
number = {2},
pages = {56-68},
doi = {10.11648/j.jbed.20230802.14},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jbed.20230802.14},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.jbed.20230802.14},
abstract = {Especially when buying products online, the only information available is either from the manufacturer or from customers in the form of online reviews. Due to the increasing importance of online reviews, Amazon has a product tester program that writes product tester reviews in addition to previous customer online reviews. This study investigates the credibility of product tester reviews in the three core dimensions of credibility – competence, trustworthiness, and attractiveness. The authors compare customer reviews with product tester reviews in terms of their perceived credibility. Also, it is investigated whether the valence of the online reviews influences the credibility assessment. Based on an online experiment, a 2x2 between-subject-design is developed in an empirical analysis to gain empirical insights into the credibility of online reviews. The empirical analysis suggests the following main findings. Customers as authors of online reviews are rated as more credible. The authors of customer online reviews are perceived more competent, trustworthy and attractive by recipients compared to product testers. The valence of online reviews has no influence, except for the credibility dimension trustworthiness. The findings of this study enrich previous literature by showing online platforms with rating systems how customer reviews and product tester reviews are perceived by customers.},
year = {2023}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - An Empirical Comparison of the Credibility on Customer Online Reviews and Product Tester Reviews AU - Nadine Ampler AU - Nina Lehmann-Zschunke Y1 - 2023/06/15 PY - 2023 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jbed.20230802.14 DO - 10.11648/j.jbed.20230802.14 T2 - Journal of Business and Economic Development JF - Journal of Business and Economic Development JO - Journal of Business and Economic Development SP - 56 EP - 68 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2637-3874 UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jbed.20230802.14 AB - Especially when buying products online, the only information available is either from the manufacturer or from customers in the form of online reviews. Due to the increasing importance of online reviews, Amazon has a product tester program that writes product tester reviews in addition to previous customer online reviews. This study investigates the credibility of product tester reviews in the three core dimensions of credibility – competence, trustworthiness, and attractiveness. The authors compare customer reviews with product tester reviews in terms of their perceived credibility. Also, it is investigated whether the valence of the online reviews influences the credibility assessment. Based on an online experiment, a 2x2 between-subject-design is developed in an empirical analysis to gain empirical insights into the credibility of online reviews. The empirical analysis suggests the following main findings. Customers as authors of online reviews are rated as more credible. The authors of customer online reviews are perceived more competent, trustworthy and attractive by recipients compared to product testers. The valence of online reviews has no influence, except for the credibility dimension trustworthiness. The findings of this study enrich previous literature by showing online platforms with rating systems how customer reviews and product tester reviews are perceived by customers. VL - 8 IS - 2 ER -
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