An Empirical Study Of Impact Of Online Reviews On Consumer Purchasing Decision

With the rapid development of the Internet,online shopping model has beenaccepted widely,online word-of-mouth play more and more important role as anemerging consumer reviews.Recalling the previous literature,found that the traditionalmechanisms of offline word-of-mouth has been studied almostly, but for themechanisms of online reviews on consumer purchasing decisions remain to bestudied.This essay select online customer reviews as research object,selectexperienced products in C2C online clothing industry as research material，based onthe technology acceptance model and cognitive matching theoretical perspective,Bythe perceived value of the mediating variables to explore its factors and mechanism ofconsumers’purchase decision.The method of this essay used mainly literature research,depth interviews andquestionnaires.First,by reading the literature,combining the characteristics ofconsumer shopping decisions,the factors of online reviews will be divided in threedimensions,the number of online comments,the quality of online reviews’ content,thecredit worthiness of online commentators;consumer’ purchase decision will bereflected directly as purchase decision.Based on this foundation,the research model ofthis essay has been put forword.Secondly, doing interviews with experienced online consumers for relatedquestions of studied model in semi-structured interviews, based on the results ofinterviews to improve the model to prepare for large-scale survey.Finally，the auther make questionnaires object to students and recent graduatesstudents to collect data required for the study. Using SPSS19.0statistical analysissoftware to ensure reliability, using correlation analysis, factor analysis and regressionanalysis and other methods to further test the online consumer reviews on theperceived value and intermediary role of perceived value on the consumer purchasedecisions.Combined with research hypothesis and statistical analysis results,verify theresearch model and research hypothesis,draw the following conclusions as follow：First，the number of online reviews,the quality of online reviews’ content and thecredit worthiness of online commentators have a significant impact on the perceived value. The number of online reviews, the quality of online reviews’ content have asignificant positive impact on the functional value; The quality of online reviews’content and the credit worthiness of online commentators have a significant positiveimpact on the emotional value; the number of online comments,the quality of onlinereviews’ content and the credit worthiness of online commentators have a significantpositive impact on social value.Second, the three dimensions of functional value, emotional value and socialvalue have a significant impact on consumer purchase decisions. Among them, thefunctional value have the greatest influence to purchase decisions, emotional valueand social values followed.Third, the online reviews have a significantly affect on purchase decisions, andthe online reviews will affect purchase decisions by perceived value. The perceivedvalue play an intermediary role among the number of online comments,the quality ofonline reviews’ content,the credit worthiness of online commentators,the more thenumber of online comments,the more the the quality of online reviews’ content,themore the credit worthiness of online commentators,the desire of consumer purchasewill be greater.Based on above conclusions, this essay gives targeted policies and proposals:(1)Enterprises should take appropriate incentives to encourage consumers tocomment on relevant sites, e-commerce business and online shop should establishtheonline exchange platform, the more the number of comments,the higher the popularityof goods, the more attention consumer will pay to.By these measures,the enterpriseswill achieve their marketing effectiveness.(2)E-commerce business or online shop can take coupons，small gifts，points ordiscounts and other incentives as a reward, to encourage consumers publishhigh-quality post-purchase evaluationin by the relevant online communicationplatform. On the other hand，to improve the quality of online reviews’content is a wayto control negative word of mouth effectively,adopt preventive measures against thenegative word of mouth, deal with negative information timely, communicate withconsumers about information feedback, reduce the effects of negative word of mouth.(3)Companies should explore high-credit online commentators actively andencourage these commenters to publish positive comments.By these,Companies canplay better word of mouth marketing role with a smaller cost.Meanwhile,companiesshould carry out effective management measures to expand the function of positive comments and control negative comments to improve consumers’ perceived value.(4) Companies should improve consumers’ perceived value.The management ofconsumers’ perceived value requires online shop managers to create a good serviceatmosphere, concern about functional value, emotional value and social value duringmarketing process. Managers should stand on consumers’perspective, providehumanize dservices by people-oriented way to enhance its brand value,establish agood social image,thus further affecting consumers’ shopping attitudes, aspirationsand behavior.