Consumer Preferences for Expert Versus Peer Reviews on Websites

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Consumer Preferences for Expert Versus Peer
Reviews on Websites
L. Mark Carrier, Nancy Cheever, and Larry Rosen
Online consumers are exposed to increasingly
larger amounts of information from online
recommendation agents
Preferences were affected by the type of website
Website users with experience were more likely to
prefer experts
These agents include both peer and expert
reviewers, as well as businesses themselves.
Online businesses are concerned about the effects
of providing peer recommendations. The potential
effects of providing online reviews for consumers
are varied (see Table 1).
Figure 2. Average preference ratings for peers
(versus experts) by type of website.
Figure 4. Average preference ratings for peers
(versus experts) by type of website and by amount
of website use.
Table 1. The variety of opinions about providing
online customer reviews expressed in the online
business community.
Negative reviews were preferred over positive
reviews
The project goal was to find the effects of
various factors upon consumers preferences for
expert and peer reviews
The results are interpreted within a cognitive
framework or with a credibility-based explanation
Data were collected through an online survey
of over 1,300 friends, family members, and
acquaintances of students in a General Education
course. Items on the survey included ratings of
preferences for peer reviews versus expert
reviews and hypothetical online reviews that were
evaluated for their usefulness and/or importance.
Figure 3. Average ratings of helpfulness and
importance of eight fictitious reviews across
which website, author (peer vs. expert), and
valence (bad vs. good) were varied. Lower ratings
are more positive.
Figure 1. Funny example of peer review on
Amazon.com.