Influences Internet Word-Of-Mouth Have On Consumer Bahaviors On Different Decision-Making Stages

Because word-of-mouth contains consumers’perception and appraisal, it has come to be seen as an important source by consumers and an important information carrier by enterprises. In recent years, as Internet rapidly developing, consumers released and disseminated information through Internet, and then Internet word-of-mouth appeared. Compared with traditional word-of-mouth, Internet word-of-mouth has richer content, more communication channels, rapider propagation velocity, and larger reach. A lot of studies have proved that Internet word-of-mouth has vital importance to consumer behavior, regarding consumer decision-making process as a whole. However, E.B.M pattern pointed that consumer decision-making process contained such five stages as problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision and post purchase behavior, so to evaluate different influences Internet word-of-mouth has on consumer behavior on different consumer decision-making stages is necessary.Through analyzing various consumer behavior patterns, we found that they all elaborated consumers’ability to obtain information on information search and latter stages, but they neglected influences online information has on consumers on problem recognition stage. Therefore, we mainly selected problem recognition stage to analyze and compare it with purchase decision stage. Information Acceptance Model stated that both information source and content affected consumers’acceptance of information; and Elaboration Likelihood Model pointed that consumers’ speciality and product involvement affected consumers’information processing routes. On the above bases, we selected source and content of Internet word-of-mouth as independent variables, consumers’speciality and product involvement as moderator variables, and consumers’attitude as dependent variable, to evaluate differences of influences Internet word-of-mouth has on consumer behavior between problem recognition stage and purchase decision stage. In our study, woman consumers ranging from20to30years old and cosmetics were study objects.The empirical analysis results showed that more consumers were affected by Internet word-of-mouth on purchase decision stage; additionally, different from that on-purchase decision stage, consumers paid more attention to speciality of Internet word-of-mouth releasers as well as reliability of releasing platform. Then we provided three suggestions to enterprises, which might be well-accommodated to the age of Internet. Firstly, enterprises should make every effort to ensure the effect and coverage of Internet word-of-mouth via multiple media and with multiple content forms. Secondly, enterprises should shorten the path from recognizing problem to making purchase decisions, and raise the look-to-book ratio. Thirdly, enterprises should keep interacting with consumers, and make consumers involve in improving their products or services.