All posts by Tran Truong An Nguyen

How Trending Status and Online Ratings Affect Prices of Homogeneous Products

March 9, 2018 Tran Truong An Nguyen Leave a comment

The Internet and Word-of-Mouth (WOM)

Ever since the inception of the Internet, consumers have benefited from extensive opportunities to share their evaluations of products online. Most e-commerce platforms allow consumers to review products, and an increasing number of opinion platforms have been introduced that offer online consumer ratings and reviews. Furthermore, most online retailers are now listing and selling trending products, defined as products that large groups of individuals are currently purchasing or discussing (Kocas and Akkan, 2016). In their article “How trending status and online ratings affect prices of homogeneous products”, Kocas and Akkan explore the pricing implications of these reviews and trending status. The following research questions result:

RQ1: How do standardised average prices vary with product popularity (measured by the trending status)?

RQ2: When controlled for popularity, how do standardized average prices vary with average consumer ratings?

Related Theory

Research in marketing and economics have shown that it is profitable for retailers to sell popular products at a discount as advertising the low price is an effective and cheap method to inform consumers of the extra surplus they could get by purchasing these products (Elberse, 2008). In the present study, trending is considered an indicator of product popularity as well as a costless form of advertising – trending products signal desirability and potential positive surplus to consumers (Hosken and Reiffen, 2004). Hence, one can assume that trending products are priced lower by retailers, as the resulting increase in demand more than likely compensates for the decrease in marginal revenue per item sold.

Furthermore, several studies have shown that positive ratings and reviews have a positive effect on sales (Baek et al., 2012). Similarly to trending status, high ratings can act as a signal of desirability. Hence one can reasonably assume that highly rated products should be priced lower by retailer for the same reason as aforementioned.

Formally stated,

H1: Retailers randomize prices of products independently. The average and minimum profit-maximizing prices for the trending products are lower than the prices for non-trending products given identical average consumer ratings.

H2: The average and minimum profit-maximizing prices for the product with higher average consumer ratings are lower than the product with lower average consumer ratings given identical trending status.

Results

This study analyses data gathered from 24 of the 28 categories of books available on Amazon.com from May 25 to September 13, 2011 and includes a sample of 466’190 books. Both hypotheses are supported by the experiment, showing that a trending product should be priced lower than other products in order to exploit the higher number of browsers these trending items attract. Similarly, highly rated products lead to a higher conversion rate (from browsing to purchasing) and, hence deserve lower prices.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Whereas several studies have examined the impact of viral characteristics of products on consumer behaviour and pricing policies, this study is the first to empirically examine the influence of trending status on pricing online in a field experiment with a large dataset. Similarly, whereas several studies have examined the impact of online reviews on consumer behaviour, no prior work has examined how online reviews and ratings affect prices of homogeneous goods. A strong point of this paper is that it acts on these 2 gaps to provide novel findings, and tangible and actionable insights to practitioners.

Another strength is that this paper provides a detailed methodology, which is complemented by an appendix as well as a detailed explanation of the economic foundations behind the theory (including formulas). This level of details increases the academic relevance of the paper, and allows other researcher to easily replicate the experiments, hence facilitating continuous research on the topic.

One of the weaknesses of this study is the fact that it only examines one type of products – books. Several studies (e.g. Abdullah-Al-Mamun and Robel, 2014) have shown that price sensitivity varies from one product category to another. Similarly, product reviews are generally more important for certain types of products than others. For instance, for a product such as a microwave, personal taste doesn’t really matter, hence one could expect product reviews to be more important as it provides an objective evaluation. However, for a product such as a science-fiction book, personal taste is important, hence the influence of product reviews is likely lower. Thus, it would be beneficial to replicate this study while taking into account category- and product-specific features as a predictor of prices. This can easily be done by replicating the experiment with more product categories on Amazon, and would validate the robustness of this study’s findings across product categories.

A second weakness of this paper is the fact that it examines the impact of online ratings by relying only on single-dimensional rating schemes. Online platforms display reviews using a variety of formats, and many platforms provide separate ratings for different product attributes. Research has shown that multi-dimensional and single-dimensional rating schemes in online review platforms have different impact on consumers (Tunc et al., 2017). Similarly, this study only looks at the ratings but not at the content of the review. However, studies have shown that the latter can influence consumer behaviour. Both these factors can influence the conversion rate from browser to buyer (Mudambi and Schuff, 2010) and thus the profitability of retailers. Hence, it would be interesting to replicate the present research in the context of multi-dimensional rating schemes, and take into account the actual content of online reviews.

Implications

We have seen that there are significant advantages to demand-based pricing for popular products with a relatively high market share. Hence, online retailers should monitor signs of trending as they act as a positive desirability signal that increases the demand of price-comparing consumers. By responding to trending signs and adjusting their prices, retailers can optimise their profits. Nevertheless, managers should be cautious of the research findings and conduct further experiments when applying them to products other than books. Finally, managers should be careful about the pace at which they adjust their prices – popularity status can change extremely quickly, but consumers will not react well to frequent price changes.

References

Abdullah-Al-Mamun, M. K. R., & Robel, S. D. (2014). A Critical Review of Consumers’ Sensitivity to Price: Managerial and Theoretical Issues. Journal of International Business and Economics, 2(2), 01-09.

Baek, H., Ahn, J., & Choi, Y. (2012). Helpfulness of online consumer reviews: Readers’ objectives and review cues. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 17(2), 99-126.

Brynjolfsson, E., Hu, Y., & Smith, M. D. (2010). Research commentary—long tails vs. superstars: The effect of information technology on product variety and sales concentration patterns. Information Systems Research, 21(4), 736-747.

Elberse, A. (2008). Should you invest in the long tail?. Harvard business review, 86(7/8), 88.

Hosken, D., & Reiffen, D. (2004). How retailers determine which products should go on sale: Evidence from store-level data. Journal of Consumer Policy, 27(2), 141-177.

Kocas, C., & Akkan, C. (2016). How Trending Status and Online Ratings Affect Prices of Homogeneous Products. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 20(3), 384-407.

Mudambi, S. M., & Schuff, D. (2010). Research note: What makes a helpful online review? A study of customer reviews on Amazon. com. MIS quarterly, 185-200.

Tunc, M. M., Cavusoglu, H., & Raghunathan, S. (2017). Single-Dimensional Versus Multi-Dimensional Product Ratings in Online Marketplaces.

Articles, Business Case, Opinion

GE crowdsourcing platform – Let’s set the collective brain on fire!

February 8, 2018 Tran Truong An Nguyen Leave a comment

We live in a fast-paced digital world and it can be challenging for companies to keep up with the speed of today’s ever changing digital era. However, new information technologies have also empowered more technologically savvy businesses by giving them new means to operate, promote their products and services, and engage with customers. One company that is constantly taking advantage of these new tools is General Electric (GE), an enterprise who has succeeded in part because of its willingness to take risks and embrace innovative technologies. The most recent example of this mindset is Fuse, their new open innovation platform that launched in late 2016. It is basically an open crowdsourcing platform, which allows users from all around the world to collaborate with each other and work with GE engineers to solve meaningful technical challenges.

How does Fuse work?

The first step is for the Fuse team to translate GE customers’ needs and “pain points” into projects on the Fuse platform. Whereas most projects are straightforward and thus directly released in the form of challenges, some appear to be less clear and hence are uploaded on the “Brainstorming Section” of the Fuse platform as “potential challenges”. These potential challenges include a (rather extensive) description of the problem to be tackled as well as precise requirements for the solution, and contributors are asked (1) whether they would be interested in such a challenge, and (2) what additional questions the Fuse team should answer before launching the challenge. Based on the feedback received, the Fuse team might decide on further actions. When released, each individual challenge comes with a description of the problem, clear requirements for solution submissions, judging criteria, a timeline, a description of the prizes for the winners, and the official rules of the competition (including property right issues).

Example of a Fuse challenge

In a second step, contributors from all around the world are invited to submit innovative contributions. Note that even though anyone can sign up and take part in challenges, the very technical nature of the challenges serves as a skills-based filtering mechanism as only people with a certain degree of knowledge in engineering would be able to understand the challenges. Once on the Fuse platform, anyone can have access to all the relevant information related to the challenges, however only registered users are allowed to submit entries. During the whole duration of the challenge, contributors can use the discussion board to brainstorm together or ask the competition holders questions. Not only does the Fuse team rapidly answer these questions and provide regular feedback/input, but they also organize “live Q&A sessions”, during which the participants can submit questions that are answered live in a video feed.

The final step is for the Fuse team to evaluate the submissions, select the winners (generally the three best entries) and allocate the money prizes. The interesting entries are also forwarded to GE’s technical team, where they are further developed into implementable solutions.

Efficiency Criteria

In less than two years, GE succeeded in creating an innovative community and successful products from their contributions (Picklett, 2017). This was made possible for the following reasons: combination of extrinsic and intrinsic incentives, good management, and well-structured governance including the mechanisms recommended by Blohm et al. (2018).

From a contributor’s perspective, the Fuse platform and its challenges are interesting not only because of the cash prizes, but also because it is designed towards building long-term relationships with its contributors. For instance, competition winners actually have an opportunity to further work with GE engineers on implementing their designs (Kloberdanz, 2017). In addition, there is also an attractive physical part to Fuse projects, which consists in a micro-factory in Chicago designed for rapid prototyping, small-batch manufacturing, and modular experimentation (Davis, 2017). This faculty will be open to contributors and can constitute an incentive for them to become part of the Fuse community as it is a good opportunity to bring their ideas to life, work with GE professionals, and meet like-minded innovators. Finally, the Fuse challenges are also a good opportunity for contributors to collaborate with other brilliant mind, expand their business network, build their professional reputation, and gain recognition from their peers.

From GE’s perspective, the Fuse platform is a new source of innovative and ideas, which can speed up content creation, cut R&D costs for the company, and provide GE with an opportunity to spot talents who might be valuable additions to their team. But how is GE able to overcome the challenges inherent to crowdsourcing (e.g. huge quantity, low quality, free-riding behaviour, risks of sharing information)? First, due to the technical nature of the Fuse challenges, the clearly defined guidelines provided to the participants, and the rapid feedback/additional inputs provided during the competition, GE ensures that only a manageable number entries of a certain quality are submitted, thus facilitating the evaluation process. The platform is also clear about the transfer of PI rights, which avoids troubles along the way. Second, for most challenges, challenge, entries are private and only viewable by the creator, admins, and judging panel. As a result, GE is able to avoid free-riding behaviours. However, contributors are still able to communicate with (and help) each-other via the discussion board, and the Fuse team makes sure to encourage the discussion with feedback and additional information, hence allowing contributors to still learn from each other. Finally, even though opening up GE’s internal workings/information of some products in order to run these challenges can be risky, the company acknowledges that “there are certain risks you just have to roll with if you want to make progress and that willingness to take those risks is what makes this exciting.” (Davis, 2017). This quotes shows that GE understands the need to willingly take risks in order to continuously transform the company and, so far, Fuse seems to be worth it as GE reunited more than 8000 contributor successfully implemented several ideas generated by the platform in less than a year (Davis, 2017).

In summary, the joint profitability criterion is met as the Fuse platform creates value for both GE and its contributors. Furthermore, the costs linked to this innovative business model are relatively low as the Fuse team only consists of 4 employees based in Chicago (Pickett, 2017). However, as the platform matures, hosts more challenges, and attracts more contributors one can assume that the number of employees will have to increase. Still, the costs-benefits ratio should remain interesting compared to doing everything in-house. Finally, the legal concerns are taken care of thanks to inclusion of PI agreements in the official rules of the Fuse challenges, and the social norm dimension is met as GE is a well-known, reputable brand, hence building trust with contributors.

References

Blohm, I., Zogaj, S., Bretschneider, U., & Leimeister, J. M. (2018). How to Manage Crowdsourcing Platforms Effectively?. California Management Review, 60(2), 122-149.

Davis, B. (2017). How GE is using co-creation as part of its digital transformation. Retrieved from https://econsultancy.com/blog/68902-how-ge-is-using-co-creation-as-part-of-its-digital-transformation

Fuse. (2018). Fuse Platform. Retrieved from https://www.fuse.ge.com

Kloberdanz, K. (2017). Working The Crowd: This Fuse Will Set The Collective Brain On Fire. Retrieved from: https://www.ge.com/reports/working-crowd-fuse-will-set-collective-brain-fire/

Pickett, L. (2017). GE Fuse’s open innovation platform invites NDT professionals to co-create solutions. Retrieved from https://www.qualitymag.com/articles/94304-ge-fuses-open-innovation-platform-invites-ndt-professionals-to-co-create-solutions