How do reviews on the Internet affect the restaurant’s revenue?

American economists have found that raising the restaurant’s rating even by a half a point on a five-point scale significantly increases the number of visitors.
This is what every restaurateur (and even more widely: any business owner in the service sector) knew even before the Internet era: bad reviews reduce the number of customers and reduce the amount of revenue, and good reviews – vice versa.
However, not all owners of such businesses today realize how important the ranking of a place among Internet users is for the success of an enterprise.
Nowadays, when, when thanks to technology, everyone can become a critic, ratings have become more important than ever.
The work of two Californian economists, Michael Anderson and Jeremy Magruder, published in the September issue of Economic Journal, is the first attempt to trace the relationship between the Internet rating and the decision to buy or visit a place. Continue reading →