This article studies the question and answer (Q&A) technology of electronic commerce platforms, an increasingly common form of user-generated content that allows consumers to publicly ask product-specific questions and receive responses, either from the platform or from other customers. Using data from a major online retailer, the authors show that Q&As complement consumer reviews: unlike reviews, questions are primarily asked pre-purchase and focus on clarification of product attributes rather than discussion of quality; answers convey fit-specific information in a predominantly sentiment-free way. Based on these observations, the authors hypothesize that Q&As mitigate product fit uncertainty, leading to better matches between products and consumers, and therefore improved product ratings. Indeed, when products suffering from fit mismatch start receiving Q&As, their subsequent ratings improve by approximately 0.1 to 0.5 stars and the fraction of negative reviews that discuss fit-related issues declines. The extent of the rating increase due to Q&As is proportional to the probability that purchasers will experience fit mismatch without Q&A. These findings suggest that, by resolving product fit uncertainty in an e-commerce setting, the addition of Q&As can be a viable way for retailers to improve ratings of products that have incurred low ratings due to customer-product fit mismatch.

本文研究了电子商务平台的问与答（Q＆A）技术，这是用户生成内容的一种越来越常见的形式，它使消费者可以公开询问特定于产品的问题并从平台或其他客户那里收到答复。作者使用主要在线零售商的数据显示，问答对消费者评论具有补充作用：与评论不同，问题主要是在购买前询问，并着重于澄清产品属性而不是质量。答案主要通过无情绪的方式传达适合特定情况的信息。基于这些观察，作者假设Q＆A减轻了产品契合度的不确定性，从而导致了产品与消费者之间更好的匹配，因此提高了产品等级。确实，当因不匹配而遭受不适的产品开始接受问答时，其随后的评分将提高约0.1至0.5星，并且讨论与健康相关问题的负面评论所占的比例也会下降。由于问答而导致的评分提高的程度与购买者在没有问答的情况下会遇到不匹配的可能性成正比。这些发现表明，通过解决电子商务环境中产品适合度的不确定性，增加问答环节可能是零售商提高由于客户与产品适合度不匹配而导致评分较低的产品的评分的可行方法。与购买者在没有Q＆A的情况下会遇到不匹配的可能性成正比。这些发现表明，通过解决电子商务环境中产品适合度的不确定性，增加问答环节可能是零售商提高由于客户与产品适合度不匹配而导致评分较低的产品的评分的可行方法。与购买者在没有Q＆A的情况下会遇到不匹配的可能性成正比。这些发现表明，通过解决电子商务环境中产品适合度的不确定性，增加问答环节可能是零售商提高由于客户与产品适合度不匹配而导致评分较低的产品的评分的可行方法。