The Effects of Online Product Reviews on Sales Performance

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of customer s communication on sales performance in the online market. Research design, data, and methodology - This study uses linear regression analysis to examine the effects of product review characteristics which are the result of customer s communication, on sales performance by using product reviews of online marketplace Amazon. Result - The increase in the number of product reviews positively affected sales performance. An increase in extreme opinions in the product review has a positive effect on sales performance. The product review length has a negative effect on sales performance. Conclusions - This study has shown the online marketplace customers communication can influence sales performance using product review big data. This study contributed to the theoretical completeness by analyzing all the products of the book category in Amazon online market. This research will complement the theories regard to the customer behavior affecting sales performance. We expect the empirical analysis result will provide empirical help to sellers, online marketplace operators, and customers. In particular, the number of letters in the product may negatively affect sales performance, so sellers need to consider this effect carefully when exposing product reviews.