We wanted to investigate whether and how the growing awareness of environmental issues can influence consumers in their purchasing choices.
Survey on the relevance of eco-sustainability in
Research conducted in 2020 on data between 2014 and 2020
In the last twenty years, attention to the issue of environmental sustainability has grown exponentially due to environmental issues known to all. We studied the correspondence of this issue within the reviews of the e-commerce platform
most widely used in the world: Amazon.
Approaching the platform, we immediately identified how the best-selling products fall into 3 main categories:
food category
household items
home appliances
For each category, the term eco-sustainability takes on different meanings:
for example, in the
food category
often refers to the
“BIOLOGICAL”
for
appliances
“ENERGY SAVING”
is highly relevant
and finally
in household items
here is greater emphasis on
“RECYCLABILITY”
After a careful sampling phase of environmentally sustainable and non-sustainable products (control sample) to be compared, we downloaded the information, including reviews, about the selected products.
From this information, the following questions arose:
How much is sustainability discussed in the reviews?
What are the most discussed topics in the reviews?
Since when and how much has eco-sustainability been discussed in Amazon reviews?
What ratings are given to eco-friendly products?
WHAT DID WE FIND?
Eco-friendly products are present on Amazon but in small numbers and are not highlighted or easily identified.
Numerosity of the sample of products analyzed by category.
The final sample of products chosen for analysis consists of 58 items. As explicated in the graph, we find 29 products classified as “eco-friendly” (based on the name or features in the description) and an equal number of 29 products that are perfectly comparable in terms of price and product type (without any reference to the issue of “eco-sustainability”) that are used as a control sample. “ecosostenibilità”) che vengono utilizzati come campione di controllo. Specifically, the sample is divided into 3 macro-categories: the food category which has 28 items, the household items category consisting of 14 products, and the remaining 16 for the household appliances macro-area.
10,292 reviews are associated with the 58 products in the final sample. An initial analysis using a text analysis algorithm searched for the theme of eco-sustainability within them. The graph shows the percentage of reviews in relation to the total, broken down by the three macrocategories, in which the theme under analysis is mentioned. The category of home appliances is the one in which users who gave a review dwelt most on the aspect of eco-sustainability, followed by household items and finally food products.
The consumer would seem to be sensitive to the issue and ready to invest in eco-sustainability as can be seen from the growing trend of reviews in which the issue has been mentioned since 2014.
The 10,292 reviews were successively analyzed according to their distribution over time. From the time series obtained with the cumulative numerosities of the reviews, it is evident that the topic of eco-sustainability has gained more momentum in the last 5 years . It is also interesting to study the trends divided by macro-category through which it can be seen that for household appliances, perhaps due to a discourse related to consumption and therefore to economic savings, the attention to eco-sustainability has manifested itself earlier than for the other macro-categories examined and how its trend is more stable over time. In contrast for the category of food products, the attention to eco-sustainability manifested later than for household appliances, but shows a stronger growth trend surpassing the other categories at the end of 2019.
Consumers, however, pay more regard to the values of price and quality than to eco-sustainability.
Different topics covered in the reviews
Continuing with the analysis carried out in the previous step, the use of the textual analysis algorithm was expanded to identify whatother topics are most addressed within the reviews examined. The analysis showed, as expected, that the topics most addressed in the reviews by users are “price” and “quality” of the products. These analyses are shown in the graph, maintaining the division by the 3 macro-categories. Anything not related to eco-sustainability, price, or quality was classified as “other.”
Continuing with the analysis, the graph shows the topics addressed within the reviews divided this time by product macrocategories and by type (eco/not eco-friendly). As could be assumed a priori, the topic of eco-sustainability appears mainly for products classified as eco-sustainable, except for the home appliances category in which we find a 1% of reviews that verge on eco-sustainability within those products not classified as such.
The profile of the sustainable consumer has some defining elements, as reflected in the content most often and most warmly covered within reviews on sustainable products.
The sustainable consumer is more focused on product features and performance, pays close attention to details, and even when satisfied with the user experience does not easily award top marks.
The last aspect considered in the analysis concerns the study of product liking through the “stars” that users gave to each product at the time they gave the review. This study was, again, broken down by macro-category and product type (eco/ non-eco). The interesting aspect that emerged is, as highlighted in the graphs, the tendency of users who pay attention to the issue of eco-sustainability to give positive but not excellent ratings (3/4 stars rather than 5). It can be speculated that this tendency is due to a more critical attitude of the users paying attention to the analyzed issue than the “ordinary” user.
Skepticism is another frequently recurring characterization in our analyses, in fact on the real eco-sustainability of the purchased products there is a lot of attention especially on the packaging control.
“The next step would be to make individual plastic packaging biodegradable as well – or use a single resealable package for at least ten capsules. Vergnano if you are listening think about it!”
Quote extracted from a review
Considering the universe from this research, it can be said that the sensitivity to the issue of environmental sustainability found in consumers is greater than the available supply and attention to the issue in the shopping experience.
