Online product fit uncertainty, product returns, and the informational role of product fit opinions

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Title Online product fit uncertainty, product returns, and the informational role of product fit opinions
Publication Type dissertation
School or College David Eccles School of Business
Department Entrepreneurship & Strategy
Author Wang, Yang
Date 2018
Description Product fit uncertainty is cited as the top reason for high online product return rate. To deal with such a challenge, online retailers encourage the customers to post opinions about product fit in the purpose of helping the subsequent shoppers make better purchase decisions. Although the role of the overall online product rating has been widely studied, the impact of fit-related opinions on product purchase and return decisions is not fully understood. The goal of this dissertation is to address those issues. In Chapter 1, by applying text mining techniques to extract reviewers' product quality and product fit opinions to derive volume and valence of each type of opinions, we estimate and compare their impacts on online purchase and product return decisions. The results suggest fit-related product opinions have a stronger effect on purchases than quality opinions do. Customers who purchase products when the valences of fit opinions are high are less likely to return the products than customers who purchase products when the volume of fit opinions are high. However, customers in the first group are more likely to post reviews with fit related issues. In Chapter 2, we probe beyond the valence of fit opinions by considering the role of fit reference (i.e., preference information) in reducing product returns. Leveraging a quasi-experiment in the apparel category, we discover it is the combination of fit valence (e.g., whether the apparel is true to size or not) and fit reference (e.g., reviewers' body size) that drives the decrease of product returns. Moreover, when fit reference is provided, negative fit opinions become as useful as positive fit opinions. Chapter 3 is a research commentary that addresses the essential problem of online product uncertainty. Within the horizontal dimension of product attributes, we propose that it is necessary to differentiate the fit attributes from the taste attributes because the nature of their characteristics results in different challenges regarding the product description uncertainty. We argue that understanding the nature of the product attributes would help researchers and business practitioners develop more advanced online IT functions addressing the relevant problems in the long run.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Dissertation Name Doctor of Philosophy
Language eng
Rights Management (c) Yang Wang
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/psf
ARK ark:/87278/s6gv1n89
Setname ir_etd
ID 1703796
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6gv1n89
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