Quote:
Originally Posted by Jozawun
It would be interesting to get a statistical check of the influence of Amazon's review system on sales. Do positive/negative ratings actually lead to increased/reduced sales?
Mind you, it surprises me that people actually take notice of the opinions of people unknown to them, unless they actually state a relevant fact.
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I can think of a way to test this: Have test subjects examine a list of 10 books, and they get three (or some other number) of the books for free. The subjects are divided into two groups. Each group sees the same list of books, except that the reviews are different. People could see the covers, read the blurb, and read the sample (obviously a small sample, for the sake of time). If reviews matter, we should see a difference between the two groups in which books they select.
It doesn't surprise me that people use other people's opinions to make decision. Word of mouth from people I know ranks at the top for selecting books. Reviews from people I don't know are still useful, although of less value. One time when I was going out to dinner, there was one Chinese restaurant that was packed with people. Rather than eating there, we went to a different Chinese restaurant that was totally empty. We didn't want to wait, so we went to the empty one. We really should have waited for a table at the first restaurant. I didn't know any of those people at that restaurant, but that they were eating there instead of the other place was a sort of "review". Of course, the opinions of others aren't always right. I've found great restaurants that aren't very popular, and popular restaurants aren't always very good.