The role of online reviews on mobile shoppers' impulsive buying behavior

Abstract

Abstract The Role of Online Reviews on Mobile Shoppers’ Impulsive Buying Behavior YI JIN Dept. of Business Administration The Graduate School Hanyang University Purpose- The purpose of this paper is to discuss the effect of electronic word of mouth on consumer impulsive buying behavior using a scenario method. Meanwhile, it is a beneficial supplement for studying the different effects of EWOM on impulsive buying with the different reviewer expertise and review type. Methodology- We employed a 2×2 factorial design and survey by using a scenario that used by Rook and Fisher (1995) with appropriate modification so that it applies to this study. We survey via mobile phone, each scenario appears randomly. We selected 400 Chinese netizens as our survey objects, therefore each scenario has 100 participants. Findings- On the route of that online reviews impact on consumers perceived information usefulness and impulsive buying behavior, the reviewer expertise as the main role, while review type as the secondary role. Research limitations- The scenarios designed in this study are developed under the background of virtual networks, errors may occur due to the lack of control variables. Secondly, this paper considered review sender and review itself as the main viewpoint that influences online word-of-mouth, but lack of the consideration from the perspective of the online review receptors. Implications- This paper indicated that online merchants should pay enough attention to the online word-of-mouth, and then focus on increasing the professionalism and attribute-centric reviews to build their own credibility. Keyword: consumer impulsive buying behavior, reviewer expertise, review type, cognitive fit theory (CFT)