A SAS Text Mining Approach to Predicting the Resolvability of Disputes Between eBay's Sellers and Buyers

Overview

A well functioning reputation and feedback system is foundational in consumer-to-consumer electronic commerce, an example of which is the electronic auction. One's interest in this paper is the analysis of the predictive power of both buyer and seller comments in determining the resolvability of transaction disputes in online auctions. Using data gathered from the eBay, Inc. reputation system, the paper analyzes buyer and seller comments using the versatile SAS Enterprise Miner software Text Miner node. In the analysis the paper employs a binary target variable "Resolvable" to indicate whether an auction dispute has the possibility of being resolved to the satisfaction of buyer and seller.