The Influence Of Negative Internet Word-of-Mouth On Consumer Purchase Intention

As one of the most influential channels of communication,word of mouth is an important research area of marketing discipline.With the development of Internet media,IWOM breaks the constraints of time and space.It spreads wider,has a large number and grows rapidly.It has a great impact on consumer evaluation of products,purchase intention and development of company.Word of mouth has also got concern and attention.Since 2000,domestic and foreign research on IWOM has increased gradually.In the past,many studies have showed that the negative word of mouth is more influential than the positive word of mouth.Under the Internet environment,companies cannot avoid the problems of the negative Internet word of mouth.This study takes experimental methods to explore the influence of negative IWOM on consumer purchase intention.Firstly,this paper retrospects and summarizes the theories of word of mouth,negative IWOM,perceived benefits and consumer purchase intention.Through review of the literature,we found that in the study of word of mouth most scholars construct theoretical models of negative IWOM in terms of IWOM disseminators,recipients and information characteristics.Previous studies on the type of negative IWOM are limited,and concludes are different,even contradictory.From this point of view,this paper discusses the influence of the type of negative IWOM on consumer purchase intention.Through summarizing and analyzing the literature,according to the features of word of mouth,negative IWOM is divided into two types:subjective and objective negative IWOM,which are studied as independent variables.Perceived benefits are introduced to be a mediator,and brand familiarity is introduced as a moderator according to the cue utilization theory.Based on the existing research results,the hypotheses are put forward.In this paper,the experimental method is used to verify the research hypothesis,using 2(Type of negative IWOM:subjective vs.objective)×2(Brand familiarity:high vs.low)experiment to examine the influence of the independent variable(type of negative IWOM)on the dependent variable(purchase intention),as well as the roles of mediating variable(perceived risk)and the moderating variable(brand familiarity).200 subjects were invited in the formal experiment,and 177 valid questionnaires were obtained.The sample data were analyzed by SPSS23.0 statistical software.The empirical results show that the objective negative IWOM has greater influence on purchase intention than the subjective negative IWOM,and perceived benefits plays a mediation role in the relationship between the negative IWOM type and consumer purchase intention.In addition,brand familiarity plays part of moderating role in the relationship between the negative IWOM type and consumer purchase intention.The effect of subjective negative IWOM on purchase intention is influenced by brand familiarity,and the consumers with lower brand familiarity get greater influence.The influence of objective negative IWOM on consumer purchase intention is not significantly different because of brand familiarity.