Building the long bridge between visitors and customers through online general reviews
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-01-2016-0028 |
| Published date | 08 April 2019 |
| Pages | 201-218 |
| Date | 08 April 2019 |
| Author | Wen-Yu Tsao |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Bibliometrics,Databases,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet,Records management & preservation,Document management |
Building the long bridge between
visitors and customers through
online general reviews
Wen-Yu Tsao
Department of Information Management,
National Chin-Yi University of Technology, Taichung, Taiwan
Abstract
Purpose –Many reviews on the internet are contributed their time to evaluate which are largely transparent
generally; however, How are these information valuable and useful to visitors before making a purchasing
decision? As the reason, there is a need to understand the distal path of visitors concern. The purpose of this
paper is to evaluate the effects of both perceived useful and valuable motivations on visitors’willingness to
buy in the distal paths.
Design/methodology/approach –Web questionnaire survey.
Findings –Visitors’confirmation was the beginning to impact the intention to buy through only one distal
path, perceived value (PV) and satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications –Even though the author tried his best to design and implement
thoughtfully for this research, there are still some limitations. First, the results could be influenced by
self-selection bias. The sample of respondents surveyed in this study consisted of young adults (58.90 percent
were between the ages 21 and 25 years old), the majority of whom (54.79 percent) were students. Therefore, in
the context of this study, the visitors surveyed were young and able to easily access information online.
The phenomenon has been, proved by Hsu (2013), found, it still needs to explore further. Second, perceived
usefulness did not have a significant impact on satisfaction which consistent with Tao et al. (2009) result.
The data represent the response’feeling for now; it needs to be explored further. Third, it would also
be worthwhile to investigate any obstacles, such as believable (Cheung et al., 2012) that might reduce
the intentions to buy of visitors. Finally, recommendations and promotions have also been found to influence
visitors’further purchasing behavior, such as extra buy (Tsao, 2013). These phenomena are worth
investigating in future research.
Practical implications –To inspire visitors, information of reviews can be posted by offering positive or
negative suggestions (e.g. good or bad experience); managers should improve their products or services from
the suggestions of reviews and need to consider the distinctive influences of various aspects of reviews when
promoting products and devising e-marketing strategies. Marketers should recruit and filter reviews to write
positive suggestions of their own products or service. IS practitioners should post the reviews might need to
provide more detailed information (e.g. the reasons of like or dislike). The posted information from reviews
should be accurate, particularly aiming at visitors who are motivated by reviews’suggestions. All proposed
measures are particularly important for visitors with sufficient reviews effects. Greater transparency of
reviews might be achieved by more explicit reviews information (e.g. via like or dislike statements).
Social implications –The result provides a basis to generate concrete advice for owners about reviews
concern to enhance visitors’PV. It seems sensible to pursue two strategies: first, enhance the visitors’PV to
trigger motivation forward, and second, inspire the visitors to progress smoothly in the visiting stage.
Originality/value –The results of the expectation-confirmation theory applied to reviews recommendations
how important to employ for enterprises. These reviews were either directly given by experienced users or at
least validated with their help to visitors. Therefore, the value is building the distal bridge between visitors
and customers through online general reviews.
Keywords Perceived value, Distal mediators, Expectation-confirmation theory (ECT),
Technology acceptance model (TAM)
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Online general reviews (shortened to reviews) of products and services are available on the
internet increasingly. Reading such reviews has become an important aspect of customers’
purchasing process (Dellarocas et al., 2010). Also reviews refer to recommendations
made to consumers based on their past buying behavior and on the stated or implied
Online Information Review
Vol. 43 No. 2, 2019
pp. 201-218
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-01-2016-0028
Received 27 January 2016
Revised 6 December 2016
24 October 2017
Accepted 14 November 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
201
Building
bridges
through
reviews
preferences of other (Benlian et al., 2012). Of these rising issues about shopping online, it has
attracted growing academic attention due to its popularity and unconventional operating
mechanisms (Chang and Wang, 2011). Compared to real stores, in which content is provided
by the clerks, the emergence of user experienced online has indeed changed conventional
ways of how information transparency. Reviews can be defined as peer-generated product
or service evaluations posted on the websites of companies or third parties (Mudambi and
Schuff, 2010). Customers often inquire hundreds of reviews to confirm product-related
information. Past-related studies named as expert reviews (Chen and Xie, 2008), online
recommendation systems (Gretzel and Fesenmaier, 2006), online customer product reviews
(Tsao, 2013) and travelers’adoption of information from online reviews (Filieri and
McLeay, 2014). Those studies have shown that reviews have a positive influence on sales
(Ghose and Ipeirotis, 2011). Korfiatis et al. (2012) discovered that the readability of a review
had a greater effect on how the review was rated by readers than its length; in addition,
hotel booking intentions and perception of trust in online reviews (Sparks and Browning,
2011), the effect of online consumer reviews on new product sales (Cui et al., 2012)
and the effects of content type, source and certification logos of online travel reviews
(Sparks et al., 2013). It is extremely helpful reviews received higher scores than those
considered less helpful. Accordingly, anyone with internet access can search and browse
virtual stores for free including reviews. The internet has changed work and the personal
lives of people around the world (Lim and Teo, 2005). Customers will seek opinions before
buying. Customers often need to know and confirm product-related information in order not
to buy inadequate or more expensive. Therefore, the reviews have become a key competitive
tool to push visitors buy further. However, is this information confirmed valuable and useful
by visitors before making a purchasing decision? Due to this reason, there is a need to
understand the visitors concern.
The content perceived value (PV ) is defined by Zeithaml (1988) as the overall assessment
of the reviews of a product based on the visitors’perceptions of what is received and what is
given in E-store (Chang and Tseng, 2013) and online shopping (Wu et al., 2014). It also has
been identified one of the major determinants of continued behavior (Chiu et al., 2012).
Reviews, who have participated in shopping, may post the feelings by sharing their
experience about a specific product or service after purchasing (Mann and Stewart, 2000).
Additionally, although the reviews’experiences sharing take time and effort, they rarely
obtain corresponding earnings. However, they have responsibilities to tell other people to
know their transactions including happy or unhappy. Recently, an increasing number of
papers have showed the reviews’participation behavior that customers’overall evaluation
of a product or service and its relationship with confirmation, satisfaction and intention
(Lin and Wang, 2006), and PV has been found to be an important factor of satisfaction with
regard to bookselling websites (Valvi and West, 2013) and continuance intentions regarding
internet protocol television (Lin et al., 2012). Prior to making a purchase decision, customers
will read reviews which discuss consumers’suggestions and opinions of the relevant
products. Generally, reviews can enhance the customers’PV of the product and encourage
the customer to continuously make a purchase. Needless to say, reviews are innovative
marketing weapons through which to achieve effective product promotion.
The expectation-confirmation theory (ECT) was developed by Oliver (1980) to explain
attitudes by comparing with a given attitude and subsequent confirmation. The ECT has
gained response in explaining user satisfaction and predicting IS continuance intention to
use (Bhattacherjee, 2001; Chiu et al., 2005; Venkatesh et al., 2011; Halilovic and Cicic, 2013;
Oghuma et al., 2016). According to the ECT, people follow a sequential process to move on
purchase intention. According to Halilovic and Cicic (2013), the process begins prior to
evaluate the reviews remarks where people compare with an initial expectation of
the product or service. After the initial understanding, they form perceptions about the
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