E-Satisfaction Ratings on Merchant Reputation Systems: An Exploratory Study

The study of e-satisfaction ratings on merchant reputation systems is crucial for customers who rely on these systems as merchant recommendation systems and for merchants who intend to use these systems as a resource to improve their service quality. This paper reports the results of an investigation of the consistency and distribution patterns of customer e-satisfaction ratings on merchant reputation systems. The study shows that the averaged customer e-satisfaction ratings on the same set of merchants across different reputation systems are significantly correlated. The averaged customer e-satisfaction ratings on the same set of merchants on different occasions on the same reputation system are also significantly correlated. The distribution pattern of individual customer e-satisfaction ratings for most merchants across different reputation systems is consistent. Implications and needs for further research are also discussed.