Impact of Online Reviews on Purchasing Decisions

Internet has enabled today's consumer to transform himself from passive to an active and an informed consumer who can share his experiences, opinions about product or services with an infinite number of consumers around the globe. These reviews or opinions are further used by potential buyers of that particular product or service via electronic Word of Mouth (e-WOM). The study on the impact of e-WOM on online sales has gradually emerged but a number of questions still remain unanswered. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of one type of e-WOM i.e., the online consumer reviews, on purchasing decisions of electronic products. This empirical study also focuses on the relationship between reviews and purchasing behaviour. An instrument was prepared to measure the proposed constructs, with questionnaire items taken from prior studies but adapted to fit the context of e-commerce. The survey was applied to academicians in India through internet. The results show that consumer reviews have a causal impact on consumer purchasing behaviour and they have an effect on choosing the products by consumer. Finally, the results and their implications are discussed.

An Application of Text Mining to Capture and Analyze eWOM

Marketing concept has progressed through different phases of evolution in the past. At the moment, customer relationship management is considered as the last era of marketing development. The main purpose of this approach is to build long-term oriented profitable relationships with customers. So, companies should know better their customers. This knowledge can be created through a deeper analysis of companies' data with data mining tools. Companies which are able to use data mining tools will gain strong competitive advantages for their strategic decisions. Hotel industry is selected in this study, since it provides a warehouse of customer comments from which precious knowledge can be obtained if text mining as a data mining tool is used appropriately. Thus, this study attempts to explain the stages of text mining with the use of Rapidminer. As a result, different approaches according to the customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction are discussed to build competitive advantages.

Developing a Research Framework to Assess Online Consumer Behaviour Using Netnography in India

Netnography is a specialized form of ethnographic research that has been adapted to the unique contingencies of various types of computer-mediated social interaction. With the tremendous growth in the number of Internet users in India, the potential of utilizing netnography to study various aspects of management and business has also increased. Several e-Commerce companies have started operating in India since 2007. Over time, the number of online consumers has also increased in India. Therefore it is important to know the online consumer behaviour towards e-Commerce companies operating in India. Keeping the above facts in view, this chapter proposes Netnogrpahy as an effective research method to assess online consumer behavior. The chapter not only helps in providing future agenda for research, but also presents a framework that may be adopted to carry out Netnogrpahy of e-commerce related websites in India.

Network Text Analysis and Sentiment Analysis

Through Social Media, like social networking sites, wikis, web forums or blogs, people can debate and influence each other. Due to this reason, the analysis of online conversations has been recognized to be relevant to organizations. In the chapter we introduce two strategic tools to monitor and analyze online conversations, Sentiment Text Analysis (STA) and Network Text Analysis (NTA). Finally, we propose one empirical example in which these tools are integrated to analyze Word-of-Mouth regarding products and services in the Digital Marketplace.

eWOM Marketing Techniques for Competitive Advantage

In today's dynamic marketing world, it is critical to understand the strategic importance of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). This chapter discusses the genesis of eWOM from word-of-mouth, difference between the two and what marketing literature says about eWOM's different aspects - both pros and cons. The chapter also tries to explain what motivates consumers to share their consumption experience through eWOM route with the help of literature review. The chapter also discusses present eWOM marketing techniques adopted and also the criticism of eWOM. Lastly, the author points out fields yet to be explored in eWOM research.

Is It Worth Sharing?

Social media has been found to have created a paradigm shift in the digital marketplace by giving a new technological face to marketing, highlighting on brand awareness and effectiveness. In this digital marketplace, emotions lead users to like or dislike, share or not to share messages, thus evoking, influencing and shifting public opinions on everything from political parties to corporate reputations, brands, products etc. It is important to understand how emotions and content relevance make these messages go viral. To explore this relationship, in-depth interviews with people of Generation Y were conducted, who were shown two videos that have gone viral. Findings focus on how the content of these videos and emotions generated will lead the respondents to share them online. Further this study helped design a Emo-Cog (emotion –cognition) induced decision tree model which the generation Y consumers might frequently be using to decide on whether to share the videos or not. The discussion unveils future avenues highlighting emotions in viral marketing.

Investigating impact of Electronic Word of Mouth on Consumer Purchase Intention

The domination of Word of mouth (WOM) has been applauded for many years as key influence on consumer purchases. Associating WOM with the internet usually called electronic-WOM (e-WOM) makes transmission of messages much easier, wider and faster. As e-WOM is not restricted to strong social tie groups thus the message itself plays a critical role in building purchase intention. The present study, first attempts to investigate messages efficacy on identified constructs. The study recognized credibility of message as a sole component that could moderate the discord between level of involvement and expected intention for online purchase.

Electronic Word-of-Mouth

From technology focused conceptual perspectives, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) as a theory of technology acceptance postulates four identified constructs as: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003). This study concentrates on digital storytelling as a form of eWOM for tourism promotion within the UTAUT capacities in selected ‘developing' tourism market perspectives. Results outline that in almost every aspects and contexts, appropriate technology application is supportive for tourism promotion where institutionalisation of market structures is relatively weaker.

Facebook Experience Is Different

Though the concept of experience was propounded decades ago, the terms such as Customer Experience Management, Brand Experience etc. have started gaining currency only recently. Renewed focus on the concept is the result of positive impacts of brand experience as evidenced by researches. Emergence of Social Media has provided the organizations with supplementary platforms to enhance customer experiences. The experiences of customers with various social media platforms may rub on to their experiences with the brands being promoted through these. Accordingly, present research studies the experience of select social media platforms in Indian context. Result revealed that the experience of Facebook was significantly favorable in comparison to the rest three platforms; however, a scope of improvement is evident. Result is important for platform developers as it helps them to improve their platforms and for Marketing managers as it guides them to associate their brands with the more favourable platforms in order to reap concomitant benefits.

Motivations behind Becoming a Blogger and Their Business Implications

This chapter takes fashion blogs as a case to explain motivations behind becoming a blogger and then to keep being one on the long-term. It wraps up past research findings before presenting the result of an original study conducted recently with authors of successful blogs as interviewees. It presents the typology of motivations but also the nature of potential brand-blogger relationships. Understanding such points is key to successfully use blogs as part of a useful WoM communication strategy. Findings generalizable across other sectors of activity conclude the chapter.