Despite a large body of literature on online reviews, none have considered the nuanced impacts of how multidimensional reviews affect product sales differently for mainstream vs. niche products. This study seeks to fill this knowledge gap by conducting complementary studies in two product categories (i.e., automobiles and laptops) with different methods (a field study and three lab experiments). Our paper reveals three key insights into the emerging literature and phenomenon on multidimensional review systems: (1) the interdimensional rating variance is more negatively related to product sales for mainstream products than for niche products in the same category, (2) the intradimensional rating valence on the dominant dimension of a product is more positively related to product sales for niche products than for mainstream products, and (3) the intradimensional rating variance on the dominant dimension of a product is more negatively related to product sales for niche products than for mainstream products. Our research provides important managerial implications for both product providers and review platforms.

中文翻译：

---

多维评论评估对主流产品与利基产品的产品销售的不同影响

尽管有大量关于在线评论的文献，但没有人考虑过多维评论如何对主流产品和小众产品的产品销售产生不同的影响。本研究旨在通过使用不同方法（实地研究和三个实验室实验）对两个产品类别（即汽车和笔记本电脑）进行互补研究来填补这一知识空白。我们的论文揭示了关于多维评论系统的新兴文献和现象的三个关键见解：（1）维度间评级方差与主流产品的产品销售比同一类别的利基产品更负相关，（2）维度内评级效价与主流产品相比，在产品的主导维度上与利基产品的产品销售更正相关，(3) 与主流产品相比，产品主导维度的维度内评分方差与利基产品的产品销售负相关性更大。我们的研究为产品供应商和评论平台提供了重要的管理启示。