The Study Of Cosumers’ Adoption Of EWOM From E-Commerce Websites And Social Media

With the rapid development of E-commerce, online shopping has become one of the most popular consumption patterns. Unlike the consumption in the traditional stores, consumers cannot reach and feel the commodities in the network environment. Thus they need the help of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) to make decisions. On the one hand, online reviews in the e-commerce websites as a typical eWOM have become an important information source for consumers. On the other hand, with the development and popularity of social media, eWOM from social media also has a significant impact in consumers’ decisions.Although these two types of eWOM (eWOM from e-commerce websites and social media) both have a significant impact in consumers’ behavior, they are quite different in terms of sources, the way of organization, exposure pathways and other aspects. At present, a large number of studies have analyzed the respective impact of both types of eWOM on consumers’ purchasing behavior, but few studies have analyzed the decision-making problem which consumers have when they are faced with two types of eWOM at the same time. This paper will first study this situation and the question of what kind of eWOM information consumers will tend to adopt. Meanwhile, this research will also verify the moderating effects of the cognitive level and involvement of consumers on the adoption of the two kinds of eWOM.This research addresses the two following questions:1. what is the eWOM adoption mechanism when consumers are facing eWOM from e-commerce websites and social media simultaneously?2. how do the cognitive level and involvement of consumers moderate the adoption mechanism? The conclusion shows that when consumers’ electronic perceived usefulness and credibility of the eWOM from e-commerce websites reduce, they will be more inclined to adopt eWOM from social media. In addition, the study finds that cognitive level and involvement of the consumers could moderate consumers’perception usefulness of eWOM, but do not have moderating effects on consumers’perception credibility of eWOM.