The impact of COVID-19 on online product reviews

Purpose The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to drastic changes in the lives of customers. Social isolation, financial difficulties, fear of being infected and many other factors have caused the psychological well-being of customers to deteriorate. By taking up the role of online reviews in the regulation of consumers’ moods, this study aims to examine the changes that have occurred in online product ratings, as well as the negative tone and word counts of product reviews during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach This study examines the online reviews of 321 products in the pre-COVID, immediate COVID and extended COVID periods. This paper compares the changes that have taken place in product evaluations via various analysis of variance analyses. The authors also test the effect of COVID-related deaths on product evaluations via regression analyses. Findings The results indicate that online product ratings decreased sharply just after the outbreak of COVID-19. The study also found that the tone of reviews was found to be more negative and the length of reviews appeared to be longer in comparison to the pre-COVID-19 period. The results also revealed that the product type (experience vs search) moderated the effect of the pandemic in online reviews and the impact of COVID-19 on online product reviews diminished in the later stages of the ongoing pandemic. Practical implications Managers should be aware of the detrimental impact of pandemics on online product reviews and be more responsive to customer problems during the early stages of pandemics. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that analyzes the effects of a pandemic on online product ratings and review content. As such, this study offers a timely contribution to the marketing literature.