The Effect of Word of Mouth on Sales: Online Book Reviews

The Effect of Word of Mouth on Sales: Online Book Reviews: "The Effect of Word of Mouth on Sales: Online Book Reviews from Yale School of Management, examines the effect of consumer reviews on relative sales of books at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. They find that 1) reviews are overwhelmingly positive at both sites, but there are more reviews and longer reviews at Amazon.com, 2) an improvement in a book's reviews leads to an increase in relative sales at that site, and 3) the impact of 1-star reviews is greater than the impact of 5-star reviews. "