Consumer Choice Absent Quality Indicators – A Pardons Example
This is not strictly true
This is not strictly true. Simply because successful consumers of the good will forswear any knowledge of it doesn't mean unsuccessful consumers won't report their negative experiences widely. In fact, we find that this is one of the best indicators of quality when the other, more prominent signals are absent. Naturally, though, this leads to a related problem: those firms that do not have negative word-of-mouth have no word-of-mouth at all, and thus only the relativelybad firms get any publicity.
Consumer Choice Absent Quality Indicators A Pardons Example