Michelle Fritz proposes a study analyzing the impact of product prices on ratings using data from over 2 million Amazon reviews. Preliminary analysis found that 12.3% of reviews mentioned price across various categories. The analysis also found that for many popular products, average ratings were highest when prices fell between 60-80% of the maximum price. Future work could expand the data collection and analysis to better understand the relationship between prices, ratings, and sales.

1. Data Incubator Project Proposal:
Study of the Impact of Prices of
Product Ratings
Michelle Fritz
August 4, 2016

2. Price mentions in Amazon reviews
12.3 % of approx. 2 million reviews
(1.3 GB) specifically mention price in
the following categories:*
• Cell Phones
• Health and Personal Care
• Clothing, Shoes and Jewelry
• Home and Kitchen
• Office Products
• Patio, Lawn and Garden
• Tools and Home Improvement
• Automotive
• Beauty
*Data taken from http://jmcauley.ucsd.edu/data/amazon/

3. Which price range yields the highest average rating?
Item Price range (% of max price) where avg. rating is
maximized
Smartphones 80-100%
Blenders 60-80%
Coffee Makers 80-100%
Headphones 20-40%
Laptops 40-60%
Hair Straighteners 60-80%
Tablets 0-20%
Televisions 60-80%
Vacuum cleaners 40-60%
Hiking boots 80-100%

4. Which price range yields the highest average rating?
Overall prices between
60-80% of the maximum
price yield the highest
average rating.

5. Future improvements
• More rating and price data, including for other products.
• Analysis of pricing mentions and average ratings together.
• More in-depth analysis of price mentions.
• Analysis of other factors affecting ratings, such as quality.
• Analysis of the effect of average ratings and number of ratings on
sales.