Detailed Information on Publication Record

The aim of the article is to determine what influence the last published review has on the sales success of an item, regardless of whether the average rating of the item has changed as a result of the last published review. For this purpose, the daily sales figures of over two thousand articles were examined over a period of 21 months depending on their last published rating of one to five stars from Amazon Germany. It was found that the last published rating has no measurable influence on the sales success of an item. Only half of the sample showed that sales of an item were higher if the last rating was positive rather than negative. Furthermore, no correlation was found between the number of stars and sales, even when only expensive or high-demand items were considered. This means that online stores or manufacturers do not necessarily have to react to the last review of an item in order to exploit sales potential.