Method for product selection considering consumer’s expectations and online reviews
ISSN: 0368-492X
Article publication date: 30 December 2020
Issue publication date: 9 August 2021
Abstract
Purpose
In recent years, the updating speed of products has been significantly accelerated, which not only provides diversified styles for consumers to select from but also makes consumers face selection problems sometimes. In addition, a large number of online reviews for products emerge on many e-commerce websites and influence consumers’ purchasing decisions. The purpose of this study is to propose a method for product selection considering consumer’s expectations and online reviews to support consumers’ purchasing decisions.
Design/methodology/approach
The product attributes are divided into two categories, i.e. demand attributes and word-of-mouth (WOM) attributes. For the demand attributes, for which the consumers can give specific quantified expectations, the value function of prospect theory is used to determine the consumer’s perceived values to the alternative products according to consumers’ expectations for these attributes and products’ specifications. For the WOM attributes, for which the consumers cannot give specific quantified expectations, the sentiment analysis method is used to identify the sentiment strengths for these attributes in the online reviews, and then the consumer’s perceived values to the alternative products are determined. On this basis, the product selection methods for single consumers and group consumers are given respectively.
Findings
Finally, taking the data of JD.com (https://www.jd.com/) as an example, the practicability and rationality of the method proposed in this paper is validated.
Originality/value
First, a new product selection problem considering consumer’s expectations and online reviews is extracted. Second, the product attributes are considered more comprehensively and are classified into two main categories. Third, the bounded rationality of the consumers in the decision-making process is described more reasonably. Fourth, the sentiment dictionaries for each WOM attribute are constructed and the algorithm step of identifying the sentiment strengths is designed, which can help to identify the sentiment strengths in the online reviews more accurately. Fifth, the situation that a group plans to purchase the same products and the members have inconsistent expectations for the product attributes is considered.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was partly supported by the Humanities and Social Science Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (Project No. 19YJA630037), Scientific Research Project of Liaoning Provincial Department of Education (Project No. LQN201922), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project Nos. 71874020, 71974025) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Project No. 2020M670761).
Disclosure statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest. The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Government of China or of any other organization. We consent to publish this article in your journal and to transfer its copyright to the publisher once the manuscript has been accepted.
Citation
Li, M.-Y., Zhao, X.-J., Zhang, L., Ye, X. and Li, B. (2021), "Method for product selection considering consumer’s expectations and online reviews", Kybernetes, Vol. 50 No. 9, pp. 2488-2520. https://doi.org/10.1108/K-07-2020-0432
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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