Seller reputation, generated by buyer feedback, is critical to fostering trust in online marketplaces. Marketplaces or sellers may choose to compensate buyers for providing feedback. Signaling theory predicts that only sellers of high‐quality products will reward buyers for truthful feedback, especially when a product lacks any feedback and when the seller is not established. We confirm these hypotheses using Taobao's reward‐for‐feedback mechanism. High‐quality products, especially without established feedback, are chosen for feedback rewards, which cause sales to increase by 36%. Marketplaces and consumers can therefore benefit from allowing sellers to buy feedback and signal their high‐quality products in the process.

中文翻译：

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购买信誉是质量的信号：来自在线市场的证据

买方反馈所产生的卖方声誉对于建立在线市场的信任至关重要。市场或卖方可以选择补偿买方提供的反馈。信号理论预测，只有高质量产品的卖方才会对购买者的真实反馈给予奖励，特别是当产品缺乏任何反馈并且卖方不成立时。我们使用淘宝的回馈奖励机制来确认这些假设。选择高质量的产品（尤其是没有建立反馈的产品）来获得反馈奖励，这会使销售额增长36％。因此，市场和消费者可以从允许卖方购买反馈并在此过程中发出其高质量产品的信号中受益。