A Research On The Credibility Of Internet Word-of-mouth Based On Website Types

With the rapid development of Internet, network has become the main platform forconsumers to search products and services’ information. According to the survey,83.4%of theconsumers will query internet word-of-mouth (IWOM) before shopping and62.2%of them willchoose to buy online after that. However, due to the characteristics of anonymity the IWOMhas, the receiver can’t judge communicators’ real motivation, also cannot distinguish whetherIWOM is non-commercial, which making the consumer feel risky and insecure. Thesecharacteristics of IWOM restrict the consumer’ decision-making and the development ofcorporate marketing. Only when consumers think IWOM is credible, the IWOM can makeeffect. But credibility is a kind of subjective evaluation, which is easy to be affected by otherfactors. So this research aims to explore how consumers perceive the credibility of IWOM anddelve into its influencing factors.Firstly, this paper summarizes the influencing factors of IWOM credibility and describethem from four aspects of Harold Lasswell’ propagation mode. The theoretical model is builtby reviewers’ expertise(RE), reviewers’ motivation(RM), webs’ reputation(WP), web’reliability(WR), comment’s quality(CL), comment’s quantity(CN) and propensity to trust(TP).In terms of IWOM’s content, this paper creatively comment two dimensions of the quality andquantity.Secondly, this article sites web types as moderator variable, innovatively investigating theregulating effect of four aspects and further verified consumers’ different perceived of theinfluencing factors of IWOM credibility.This research uses SPSS to examine its reliability and validity, and AMOS to conduct EFA and multiple sets of structural model analysis which is to test website types of adjustment. Theempirical results show that all variables have a significant impact on IWOM credibilityperception. Also, the results show under different website types, the path coefficients has asignificant difference. Relatively to the shopping site, RE, RM, WR have greater effects on thecredibility of IWOM in virtual community. However, comment’s quantity in shopping siteaffects more on the credibility of IWOM. However, WR and CN have no statistically significantdifference.Finally, through the analysis of the influencing factors of IWOM credibility, this paper has athorough understanding of consumer habits, and provides reference to the enterprise marketingstrategy.