Study confirms online sales are enhanced by social
recommendations and determines the actual value of "Likes"
When online retailers display customer recommendations next
to their product descriptions, it can significantly increase the sales of
these. This is the conclusion reached following a study undertaken by academics
at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and the Technische Universität
(TU) Darmstadt. They conducted an experiment in cooperation with an online mail
order company to determine whether product recommendations by customers have an
impact on other customers' buying behavior. For this purpose, first-time
visitors to the online shop www.spiele-offensive.de in early 2013 were randomly
assigned to one of two possible groups.