Online reviews of products give consumers a chance to praise their favorite products and vent about the shortcomings. Now it appears that consumer reviews—not just buying habits—may also signal which products get dropped by companies. A study analyzing over 6,000 online reviews found that products with lower satisfaction ratings, less relevant review content, and reviews that are more subjective, shorter, and harder to read are more likely to be discontinued, according to a team of researchers that includes a WPI graduate and WPI Business School Professor Joseph Sarkis. Even the way that prospective shoppers rate the helpfulness or unhelpfulness of reviews may matter, the researchers say. “It’s known that online reviews can influence shoppers and help companies gauge product demand,” says Sarkis. “This study shows us that reviews also may be factors in the organizational decisions that companies are making.” The study was led by Qingyun “Serena” Zhu, who earned a Master of Science degree from WPI in 2014 and a PhD in 2019. Zhu is now an assistant professor at San Diego State University and has frequently collaborated with Sarkis. Results were published in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. A central concept in the research is “consumer voice,” which encompasses customer opinions, feedback, and critiques about products. This data provides valuable insights for companies making product-related decisions. The study highlights how such decisions can reflect “organizational voice,” effectively bridging the two concepts. It emphasizes the importance of not only listening to consumer input but also translating it into actionable decisions within the organization. “There is significant research into how companies make product-deletion decisions based on factors such as sales, market share, and supply chain capabilities,” says Zhu. “The role of consumer voice, especially in online retailing, is not as well understood.” For their analysis, the researchers collected online review data for each product listed in 2018 on the website of the Body Shop, a skin care and cosmetics retailer based in the United Kingdom. They also collected data from 2022 to determine if the products were still available. Using natural language processing, a form of artificial intelligence, the researchers parsed the wording in product reviews written by consumers. Each review was scored on factors such as readability, length, sentiment about a product, and whether reviews addressed the core attributes of a product. The researchers also collected information on whether reviews had been rated as helpful or unhelpful by other website users. “Results showed that products with longer reviews were more likely to have been retained by companies,” Zhu says. “Products with reviews that were negative, hard to read, or less relevant were more likely to have been deleted.” Zhu and Sarkis caution that the research does not show that reviews cause companies to delete products. Many economic factors can lead to product deletion, they say, and human decision-making is complex. Additional research is needed across a greater variety of companies and industries to validate their findings and produce a more nuanced understanding of consumer behavior, they say. “Product deletion is a fact of life, because it’s inefficient for companies to offer too many products and to continue offering products that do not meet a company’s needs,” Sarkis says. “This study suggests, however, that when companies are making product decisions, consumer reviews can provide important analytical details and enable informed decision-making.”