CU study: Consumers’ trust in online ratings misplaced

A new study published this month by University of Colorado Boulder researchers found that online user ratings are not good indicators of product quality and that consumers overwhelmingly put stock in them at their own risk.

The study — authored by CU marketing professor Bart de Langhe — was published in the Journal of Consumer Research. It examined user ratings for 1,272 products across 120 product categories on Amazon.com and analyzed how well they correlated with product ratings that were based on objective tests found in various consumer reports.

The study noted that the likelihood of an item with a higher online user rating performing objectively better than one with a lower rating was only 57 percent, with de Langhe noting that a correspondence of 50 percent would be random.

In addition, the study noted that user ratings don’t predict resale value of products.

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