IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joreco/v67y2022ics0969698922000881.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Status reinforcing: Unintended rating bias on online shopping platforms

Author

Listed:
  • Hu, Xin
  • He, Liuyi
  • Liu, Junjun

Abstract

Online shopping platforms have gradually begun to use hierarchical loyalty programs to distinguish customers. Previous studies have focused mainly on the effect of such programs on loyalty and repurchase behavior, and little is known about how customer statuses in hierarchical loyalty programs affect their online product evaluations. Drawing on social status and social conformity theory, this study investigates the impact of customer status on the valence of online reviews. An instrumental variable is proposed to address the endogeneity issue. The results show that a customer's need for status leads to a negative rating bias when leaving online reviews. At the same time, people encounter social pressure from crowds. The need for social conformity can alleviate such rating bias. This study contributes to the understanding of the effect of social status on post-purchase behavior and provides practical implications for both managers and platforms.

Suggested Citation

  • Hu, Xin & He, Liuyi & Liu, Junjun, 2022. "Status reinforcing: Unintended rating bias on online shopping platforms," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:67:y:2022:i:c:s0969698922000881
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2022.102995
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969698922000881
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jretconser.2022.102995?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thorstein Veblen, 1899. "Mr. Cummings's Strictures on "The Theory of the Leisure Class"," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(1), pages 106-106.
    2. Plotkina, Daria & Munzel, Andreas, 2016. "Delight the experts, but never dissatisfy your customers! A multi-category study on the effects of online review source on intention to buy a new product," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 1-11.
    3. Yang, Morgan X. & Zeng, Kevin J. & Chan, Haksin & Yu, Irina Y., 2021. "Managing loyalty program communications in the digital era: Does culture matter?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    4. Nishio, Kazuki & Hoshino, Takahiro, 2022. "Joint modeling of effects of customer tier program on customer purchase duration and purchase amount," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    5. Jebarajakirthy, Charles & Das, Manish, 2021. "Uniqueness and luxury: A moderated mediation approach," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    6. Jisu J. Kim & Lena Steinhoff & Robert W. Palmatier, 2021. "An emerging theory of loyalty program dynamics," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 71-95, January.
    7. Monic Sun, 2012. "How Does the Variance of Product Ratings Matter?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(4), pages 696-707, April.
    8. Yan Chen & F. Maxwell Harper & Joseph Konstan & Sherry Xin Li, 2010. "Social Comparisons and Contributions to Online Communities: A Field Experiment on MovieLens," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1358-1398, September.
    9. David Dubois & Derek D. Rucker & Adam D. Galinsky, 2012. "Super Size Me: Product Size as a Signal of Status," Post-Print hal-00681415, HAL.
    10. Bridson, Kerrie & Evans, Jody & Hickman, Melissa, 2008. "Assessing the relationship between loyalty program attributes, store satisfaction and store loyalty," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 364-374.
    11. Chen, Yanyan & Mandler, Timo & Meyer-Waarden, Lars, 2021. "Three decades of research on loyalty programs: A literature review and future research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 179-197.
    12. Xavier Drèze & Joseph C. Nunes, 2009. "Feeling Superior: The Impact of Loyalty Program Structure on Consumers' Perceptions of Status," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 35(6), pages 890-905, April.
    13. Fombelle, Paul W. & Sirianni, Nancy J. & Goldstein, Noah J. & Cialdini, Robert B., 2015. "Let them all eat cake: Providing VIP services without the cost of exclusion for non-VIP customers," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(9), pages 1987-1996.
    14. Liu, Zhiwei & Park, Sangwon, 2015. "What makes a useful online review? Implication for travel product websites," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 140-151.
    15. Bin Guo & Shasha Zhou, 2017. "What makes population perception of review helpfulness: an information processing perspective," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 585-608, December.
    16. Demoulin, Nathalie T.M. & Zidda, Pietro, 2008. "On the impact of loyalty cards on store loyalty: Does the customers’ satisfaction with the reward scheme matter?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 386-398.
    17. Weiss, Yoram & Fershtman, Chaim, 1998. "Social status and economic performance:: A survey," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 801-820, May.
    18. Lars Meyer-Waarden, 2015. "Effects of loyalty program rewards on store loyalty," Post-Print halshs-01260493, HAL.
    19. Bernheim, B Douglas, 1994. "A Theory of Conformity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(5), pages 841-877, October.
    20. Floyd, Kristopher & Freling, Ryan & Alhoqail, Saad & Cho, Hyun Young & Freling, Traci, 2014. "How Online Product Reviews Affect Retail Sales: A Meta-analysis," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 217-232.
    21. Young-Jin Lee & Kartik Hosanagar & Yong Tan, 2015. "Do I Follow My Friends or the Crowd? Information Cascades in Online Movie Ratings," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(9), pages 2241-2258, September.
    22. Veblen, Thorstein, 1899. "The Theory of the Leisure Class," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number veblen1899.
    23. Daria Plotkina & Andreas Munzel, 2016. "Delight the experts, but never dissatisfy your customers! A multi-category study on the effects of online review source on intention to buy a new product," Post-Print halshs-01522518, HAL.
    24. Alton Y.K. Chua & Snehasish Banerjee, 2015. "Understanding review helpfulness as a function of reviewer reputation, review rating, and review depth," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(2), pages 354-362, February.
    25. Els Breugelmans & Tammo Bijmolt & Jie Zhang & Leonardo Basso & Matilda Dorotic & Praveen Kopalle & Alec Minnema & Willem Mijnlieff & Nancy Wünderlich, 2015. "Advancing research on loyalty programs: a future research agenda," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 127-139, June.
    26. Söderlund, Magnus & Colliander, Jonas, 2015. "Loyalty program rewards and their impact on perceived justice, customer satisfaction, and repatronize intentions," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 47-57.
    27. Daria Plotkina & Andreas Munzel, 2016. "Delight the experts, but never dissatisfy your customers! A multi-category study on the effects of online review source on intention to buy a new product," Post-Print hal-02423571, HAL.
    28. Arbore, Alessandro & Estes, Zachary, 2013. "Loyalty program structure and consumers' perceptions of status: Feeling special in a grocery store?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 20(5), pages 439-444.
    29. Paulo B. Goes & Chenhui Guo & Mingfeng Lin, 2016. "Do Incentive Hierarchies Induce User Effort? Evidence from an Online Knowledge Exchange," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 497-516, September.
    30. Jun Pang & Angela Xia Liu & Peter N. Golder, 2022. "Critics’ conformity to consumers in movie evaluation," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 864-887, July.
    31. Meyer-Waarden, Lars, 2015. "Effects of loyalty program rewards on store loyalty," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 22-32.
    32. Zhijie Lin & Ying Zhang & Yong Tan, 2019. "An Empirical Study of Free Product Sampling and Rating Bias," Service Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(1), pages 260-275, March.
    33. Leonardo Bursztyn & Georgy Egorov & Stefano Fiorin, 2020. "From Extreme to Mainstream: The Erosion of Social Norms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(11), pages 3522-3548, November.
    34. David Godes & Dina Mayzlin, 2004. "Using Online Conversations to Study Word-of-Mouth Communication," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 545-560, June.
    35. Wendy W. Moe & David A. Schweidel, 2012. "Online Product Opinions: Incidence, Evaluation, and Evolution," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(3), pages 372-386, May.
    36. N. Demoulin & P. Zidda, 2008. "On the impact of loyalty cards on store loyalty:does the customers' satisfaction with the reward scheme matter?," Post-Print hal-00285809, HAL.
    37. Virginie Pez & Aîda Mimouni-Chaabane, 2017. "Make me feel special’: Are hierarchical loyalty programs a panacea for all brands? The role of brand concept," Post-Print hal-02980312, HAL.
    38. Yanyan Chen & Timo Mandler & Lars Meyer-Waarden, 2021. "Three decades of research on loyalty programs: A literature review and future research agenda," Post-Print hal-03652856, HAL.
    39. Lena Steinhoff & Robert W. Palmatier, 2016. "Understanding loyalty program effectiveness: managing target and bystander effects," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 88-107, January.
    40. David Dubois & Derek D. Rucker & Adam D. Galinsky, 2012. "Super Size Me: Product Size as a Signal of Status," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 38(6), pages 1047-1062.
    41. Mimouni Chaabane, Aida & Pez, Virginie, 2017. "“Make me feel special†: Are hierarchical loyalty programs a panacea for all brands? The role of brand concept," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 108-117.
    42. Pei-Yu Chen & Yili Hong & Ying Liu, 2018. "The Value of Multidimensional Rating Systems: Evidence from a Natural Experiment and Randomized Experiments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(10), pages 4629-4647, October.
    43. Malika Chaudhuri & Clay M. Voorhees & Jonathan M. Beck, 2019. "The effects of loyalty program introduction and design on short- and long-term sales and gross profits," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 640-658, July.
    44. Marios Kokkodis & Theodoros Lappas, 2020. "Your Hometown Matters: Popularity-Difference Bias in Online Reputation Platforms," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(2), pages 412-430, June.
    45. Danaher, Peter J. & Sajtos, Laszlo & Danaher, Tracey S., 2016. "Does the reward match the effort for loyalty program members?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 23-31.
    46. Das, Manish & Habib, Mohshin & Saha, Victor & Jebarajakirthy, Charles, 2021. "Bandwagon vs snob luxuries: Targeting consumers based on uniqueness dominance," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    47. Nesset, Erik & Bergem, Ola & Nervik, Bjørn & Schiøll Sørlie, Even & Helgesen, Øyvind, 2021. "Building chain loyalty in grocery retailing by means of loyalty programs – A study of ‘the Norwegian case’," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    48. Praveen K. Kopalle & Yacheng Sun & Scott A. Neslin & Baohong Sun & Vanitha Swaminathan, 2012. "The Joint Sales Impact of Frequency Reward and Customer Tier Components of Loyalty Programs," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(2), pages 216-235, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chen, Yanyan & Mandler, Timo & Meyer-Waarden, Lars, 2021. "Three decades of research on loyalty programs: A literature review and future research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 179-197.
    2. Mimouni Chaabane, Aida & Pez, Virginie, 2017. "“Make me feel special†: Are hierarchical loyalty programs a panacea for all brands? The role of brand concept," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 108-117.
    3. Alex Belli & Anne-Maree O’Rourke & François A. Carrillat & Ljubomir Pupovac & Valentyna Melnyk & Ekaterina Napolova, 2022. "40 years of loyalty programs: how effective are they? Generalizations from a meta-analysis," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 147-173, January.
    4. Meyer-Waarden, Lars & Bruwer, Johan & Galan, Jean-Philippe, 2023. "Loyalty programs, loyalty engagement and customer engagement with the company brand: Consumer-centric behavioral psychology insights from three industries," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    5. Lin, Chen & Bowman, Douglas, 2022. "The impact of introducing a customer loyalty program on category sales and profitability," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    6. Afonso Vieira, Valter & Agnihotri, Raj & de Almeida, Marcos Inácio Severo & Lopes, Evandro Luiz, 2022. "How cashback strategies yield financial benefits for retailers: The mediating role of consumers’ program loyalty," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 200-212.
    7. Dominik Gutt & Jürgen Neumann & Steffen Zimmermann & Dennis Kundisch & Jianqing Chen, 2018. "Design of Review Systems - A Strategic Instrument to shape Online Review Behavior and Economic Outcomes," Working Papers Dissertations 42, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    8. Sonja Fourie & Michael Goldman & Michael McCall, 2023. "Designing for loyalty programme effectiveness in the financial services industry," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 28(3), pages 502-525, September.
    9. Pandit, Ameet & Vilches-Montero, Sonia, 2016. "Are reward cards just a business deal? The role of calculative versus emotional card commitment in driving store loyalty," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 355-360.
    10. Zheng, Lili, 2021. "The classification of online consumer reviews: A systematic literature review and integrative framework," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 226-251.
    11. Chang, Woojung & Song, Ji Hee & Lee, Sungho, 2020. "Observation of other's preferential treatment as a constructive catalyst for improved repatronize intentions," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    12. Gabel, Sebastian & Guhl, Daniel, 2022. "Comparing the effectiveness of rewards and individually targeted coupons in loyalty programs," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 98(3), pages 395-411.
    13. Nishio, Kazuki & Hoshino, Takahiro, 2022. "Joint modeling of effects of customer tier program on customer purchase duration and purchase amount," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    14. Steinhoff, Lena & Zondag, Marcellis M., 2021. "Loyalty programs as travel companions: Complementary service features across customer journey stages," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 70-82.
    15. Coelho do Vale, Rita & Verga Matos, Pedro & Caiado, Jorge, 2016. "The impact of private labels on consumer store loyalty: An integrative perspective," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 179-188.
    16. Meyer-Waarden, Lars, 2015. "Effects of loyalty program rewards on store loyalty," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 22-32.
    17. Faramarzi, Ashkan & Bhattacharya, Abhi, 2021. "The economic worth of loyalty programs: An event study analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 313-323.
    18. Kaushik, Kapil & Mishra, Rajhans & Rana, Nripendra P. & Dwivedi, Yogesh K., 2018. "Exploring reviews and review sequences on e-commerce platform: A study of helpful reviews on Amazon.in," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 21-32.
    19. Sungsik Park & Woochoel Shin & Jinhong Xie, 2021. "The Fateful First Consumer Review," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(3), pages 481-507, May.
    20. Yani Wang & Jun Wang & Tang Yao, 2019. "What makes a helpful online review? A meta-analysis of review characteristics," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 257-284, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:67:y:2022:i:c:s0969698922000881. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.