Is time to reach customer product acceptance influenced by advertising support?

Abstract

During the worldwide pandemic many businesses started or significantly increased their online presence on major e-commerce platforms either as vendors or as sellers. These small and medium businesses need to understand what level of advertising support they need, if any, and how it can impact their performance objectives. This paper investigates how advertising influences the timing of online customer reviews after a product introduction at a major retailer with both physical stores and online e-commerce presence open to both business sellers and vendors of various sizes. The faster time to reach customer reviews is a proxy of customer product acceptance and should inform online businesses on their advertising needs when they introduce their products on e-commerce platforms. This paper demonstrates that without advertising support the time needed to reach ten customer reviews increases by 46%.