Abstract:
Online product reviews are critical source of information for customers and play a key role in their purchase decisions. The importance of online reviews can be gauged from a surge in online review-hosting platforms and ever increasing size of user communities associated with these platforms. These platforms thrive on volunteer contributions from users. These volunteers support to these platforms in many ways, from writing reviews to managing lists and various other community activities. The amount and quality of user contributions on these platforms plays a critical role for long-term success of these platforms. Prior research has focused on role and effect of user reviews on purchase decision process for prospective customers. However, we do not yet understand why users continue to contribute and if they change their contributions over time. Reviewers are heterogeneous in their experience, expertise and motivations. In this research we investigate how reviewers' contributions to online review hosting platforms changes over time. We find that reviewers do write fewer reviews over time. Further, their experience, expertise, participation cost and motivation affect their contribution to these platforms.