The role of commitment in online reputation systems: An empirical study of express delivery promise in an E-commerce platform

Express delivery, enabled by automated warehouse systems, offers a competitive advantage to e-commerce retailers by shortening order shipping time. It is a common strategy used to attract customers to maintain customer loyalty and improve customer satisfaction on an electronic commerce platform. Yet promising express delivery may heighten customer expectations, subsequently affecting their post-purchase satisfaction and potentially affecting their rating behavior for the logistics service performance. Using a dataset from an e-commerce platform, we show that orders with an express delivery promise are less likely to be reviewed and are reviewed with a lower rating score compared to orders without an express delivery promise but with the same delivery time. Interestingly, the negative effect persists even if the express order arrives earlier than the promised delivery date. We propose that customers have a preference referencing a higher expectation driven by the promise effect of the express delivery, resulting in a change in rating behavior. We recommend that firms, especially online retailers, should carefully consider anticipated customer expectations and post-purchase reactions when developing an express delivery commitment strategy.