NDLI: How Questions and Answers Shape Online Marketplaces: The Case of Amazon Answer

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How Questions and Answers Shape Online Marketplaces: The Case of Amazon Answer

Content Provider	Scilit
Author	Khern-Am-Nuai, Warut Ghasemkhani, Hossein Kannan, Karthik Natarajan
Copyright Year	2016
Description	Journal: SSRN Electronic Journal This paper uses data from two online shopping platforms to investigate the economic implications of the question & answer system. This research problem becomes increasingly important as many small and medium players in online marketplaces start to adopt this system rather than the typical online review system. Yet, the economic implications of such a Q&A system have not been studied in the previous literature. We employ the difference-in-differences approach to empirically examine the effect of question & answer elements, which exist only on one platform, on product sales. Interestingly, we find that controlling for everything else, question elements have a negative impact on sales while answer elements, particularly the depth of the answers, have a positive impact on sales. However, as we focus on the initial sales, it turns out that the number of questions and the fraction of questions that have at least one answer positively influence the sales. We also find that there is an interaction between Q&A elements and review elements in that an increase in the number of questions seems to be positively correlated with an increase in the number of reviews in the following period. Meanwhile, an increase in the number of answers appears to reduce the average length of reviews in the subsequent period. Our findings suggest that incorporating the question & answer system could be a potential approach to drive sales. However, it is crucially important for managers to develop appropriate policies to gather necessary answers to questions asked on the platform in order to capitalize on such a system.
Related Links	http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/41252/1/paper0103.pdf https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm?abstractid=2794149
ISSN	10914358
e-ISSN	15565068
DOI	10.2139/ssrn.2794149
Journal	SSRN Electronic Journal
Language	English
Publisher	Elsevier BV
Publisher Date	2016-01-01
Access Restriction	Open
Subject Keyword	Journal: SSRN Electronic Journal Information and Library Science Electronic Word of Mouth Online Discussion
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health Psychiatry and Mental Health

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