Good discounts earn good reviews in return? Effects of price promotion on online restaurant reviews

Abstract

Online consumer reviews (OCRs) are valuable to consumers and sellers. Online price promotion is commonly used by local merchants to increase sales. However, knowledge of the differences in OCRs between consumers who received a discount and regular consumers is limited. This study investigates the effects of price discounts on restaurant OCRs by comparing the review rating and open-ended contents of OCRs from consumers who received a discount and regular consumers. The results show that the review rating is higher from consumers who received a discount, whereas the word count, image count, and diversity of review contents are higher from regular consumers. Regular consumers are more likely to mention product quality, environmental quality, service quality, geographic location, purchasing process, recommendation expression, and loyalty expression in OCRs, and there is no significant difference in the dimensions of price, cognitive attitude, and emotional attitude between the two groups.