Advances in Economics and Business

Question: Discuss about the Advances in Economics and Business. Answer: Introduction: The article was taken from the website of Queensland Government. The article focused on the benefits of customer reviews listed on various websites for the business. Online media sources in present scenario have been considered as a platform to attract masses. It gives a wider exposure than any other conventional marketing channel. The article highlights the fact that the consumer read and analyse the product reviews more than the commercials during their pre-purchase research. They believe in peer recommended reviews and reviews posted on credible online sources rather than advertisements. The author of the article also points out that the online reviews has its own set of advantages and limitations. It helps the businessmen to understand the behaviour of the customer regarding their products and give them a chance of responding to issues and queries raised on the online platform. Online platform also provide the customer an opportunity to interact with the business directly and it also gives an opportunity to the marketer and the business to explore potential market segment for the product to be launched. Overall the article provide a satisfactory description about the benefits of online customer reviews and when buying a particular product the buyers give preference to the reviews over advertisements. Online marketing reviews have provided a strong medium of marketing to the businessmen and a reliable source for the buyers to obtain product information. This article was published on Forbes. It discusses about how the business is affected by the reviews of the customer reviews. It has been rightly said that a bad publicity is also a good publicity. The same goes with the reviews. Whether good or not it helps to increase the brand awareness of the product. The author states that social media is a very important medium for promoting and marketing a new product. Positive customer reviews can help to build a favourable image of the product in the minds of the masses without spending much money or time. As per the data quoted by the author, it is clearly evident that the companies who value customer reviews and include them on their website are successful in attracting and retaining a large customer segment. It is very important for any organization to consider and work upon both positive and negative feedback for the success of any product. This article also describe that in order to effectively market the product advertisements, it is r ecommended that they use real customer reviews and customer as it will enhance the credibility of the ads rather that any celebrity. It has also been mentioned that the marketers or companies who acknowledge the negative and positive feedback are creating strong customer base through brand loyalty and high revenues. The article lays an emphasis on the impact of reviews and rating of the product on consumer buying behaviour. Big shopping giants like Amazon and Alibaba have included a rating and review system for their listed products. The authors describe reviews as a piece of textual information which highlights the advantages and disadvantages of the product from the perspective of the customers. It has been become a very important source of application in todays world. In order to justify this, the authors had conducted a research in the year 2011 on over 100 German shoppers. The research was done with the help of a Questionnaires which consists various set of questions related to the online shopping reviews. The authors have included the final report of the research in the article which states that for majority of the customer, the reviews matter the most and the percentage was around 74%. Companies like Amazon encourage customer reviews by giving an option to write a review of rating the mos t helpful customer reviews. It not only authenticates the reliability of the website but the seller also. Consumers search history is also based on the reviews and ratings of the customer. The article concludes that Customer reviews are very important in helping the customers to choose for the right kind of the product. References: Business Queensland, 2017. Benefits of online customer reviews for business, Queensland Government, Accessed on: 19 April, 2017, Accessed from: https://www.business.qld.gov.au/running-business/consumer-laws/customer-service/managing-customer-reviews/benefits Agarwal, Aj., 2016. Building Trust: How To Market Your Customer Reviews, Forbes, Accessed on: 19 April, 2017, Accessed from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajagrawal/2016/03/22/building-trust-how-to-market-your-customer-reviews/#79ba0de47262 Lackermair, G., Kailer, D. Kanmaz, K., 2013. Importance of Online Product Reviews from a Consumers Perspective, Advances in Economics and Business, Accessed on: 19 April, 2017, Accessed from https://www.hrpub.org/download/201307/aeb.2013.010101.pdf