2023 thesis the impact of online reviews (ewom) on the intention to buy mobile devices

THE IMPACT OF ELECTRONIC WORD OF MOUTH
(ONLINE REVIEWS) ON THE INTENTION TO BUY

MOBILE DEVICES

Abstract

___________________________________________________________________________

Today, online networking (Internet) has become an integral part of many people's lives. With
a large number of users and high interactivity, the online environment not only connects
people to people but also an ideal place for sharing and advertising activities. In the past, the
advertising method was limited to one way only through the media such as books,
newspapers, magazines, radio, television... then today thanks to the development of the
system with an online connected global network, businesses have many choices of
advertising methods for products and services through online tools such as Google, YouTube,
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram ... easily accessible and attract potential customers. In addition,
Vietnam is rated as one of the countries with the highest number of online users in the world

(Top 13 World according to Internetworldstats.com/top20.htm, 2018) and is considered a
potential market in the field of online advertising. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to
determine how the online reviews influences consumer buying intentions and give
suggestions and recommendation for businesses to gain good online reviews from customers
to promote products as a new online advertising strategy. To achieve this result, a research
model was developed based on a combination of information acceptance model (IAM) and
rational action theory (TRA). The results of analysis by SPSS tool and SEM linear structure
panel with 9 variables showed the impact of online review characteristics, characteristics of
online reviewers as well as characteristics of audiences and the reliability of online
evaluation, which are the main element of online reviews influencing consumer buying
intention in mobile devices. The research model is proposed with 4 hypotheses. Data is
collected from a survey with a convenience sampling method and the scale of sampling is

204 participants in Vietnam. The research also suggests some practical applications and
future research directions.

Keywords: Online reviews, purchase intentions, mobile devices 1
2
Table of Contents 3
8
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 8
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY AND AUTHENTICITY 9
ABSTRACT 10
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 10
1.1. RESEARCH BACKGROUND
1.2. RESEARCH QUESTIONS 10
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. WORD-OF-MOUTH AND ELECTRONIC WORD-OF-MOUTH
2.1.1. WORD-OF-MOUTH

2.1.2. ELECTRONIC WORD-OF-MOUTH 11
2.1.3. THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WOM AND EWOM 13
2.2. ONLINE PRODUCT REVIEWS 14
2.3. HOW ONLINE REVIEWS AFFECT ON PURCHASE DECISION OF MOBILE DEVICES 16
2.4. FACTORS THAT MIGHT AFFECT THE INFLUENCE OF ONLINE REVIEWS ON
20
CONSUMERS PURCHASE DECISIONS FOR MOBILE TECHNOLOGY DEVICES 20
22
2.4.1. CHARACTERISTICS OF REVIEWS 22
2.4.2. CHARACTERISTICS OF REVIEWERS
2.4.3. CHARACTERISTICS OF TARGETED AUDIENCE FOR ONLINE REVIEWS 25

CHAPTER 3: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 25

26
3.1. INFORMATION ADOPTION MODEL – IAM
3.2. THEORY OF REASONED ACTION – TRA 27
3.3. HYPOTHESES BASED ON PREVIOUS RESEARCHES ON THE IMPACT OF ONLINE 27
29
REVIEWS ON PURCHASE INTENTION 30

3.3.1. CHARACTERISTICS OF ONLINE REVIEWS 32
3.3.2. CHARACTERISTICS OF REVIEWERS 33
3.3.3. CHARACTERISTICS OF AUDIENCES
3.4. THE RESEARCH MODEL 33
3.5. INDEPENDENT VARIABLES 33
3.5.1. CHARACTERISTICS OF REVIEWS 33
3.5.2. CHARACTERISTICS OF REVIEWERS 34
3.5.3. CHARACTERISTICS OF AUDIENCE
3.6. DEPENDENT VARIABLE 35

CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 35
36
4.1. RESEARCH PHILOSOPHY 37
4.2. RESEARCH DESIGN 38
4.3. SAMPLING METHOD
4.4. IMPLEMENTATION OF SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE 38
4.4.1. PILOT STUDY 38
4.4.2. PROCEDURES FOR DATA COLLECTION

4.5. DATA ANALYSIS 39
4.5.1. TESTING OF THE RELIABILITY COEFFICIENT CRONBACH ALPHA 39
4.5.2. FACTOR ANALYSIS (EFA) 39
4.6. THE SCALE OF THE RESEARCH

4.7. QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN 40
40
CHAPTER 5: FINDINGS AND RESULTS
43
5.1. COLLECTION OF DATA
5.2. DESCRIPTION OF SAMPLING 43
5.2.1. GENDER 43
5.2.2. AGE
5.2.3. OCCUPATION 43
5.2.4. INCOME 44
5.3. RESULTS OF TESTING SCALES 45
5.3.1. RESULTS OF TESTING CRONBACH ALPHA RELIABILITY COEFFICIENT 46
5.3.2. EFA DISCOVERY FACTOR ANALYSIS 47
5.3.3. REGRESSION ANALYSIS AND RESULTS 47
48
CHAPTER 6: DISCUSSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND LIMITATIONS 50

6.1. DISCUSSIONS 52
6.2. RECOMMENDATIONS
6.3. LIMITATION OF THE RESEARCH PAPER 52
53
CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION 55

BIBLIOGRAPHY 56

APPENDICES 57

APPENDIX 1. LEARNING STATEMENT 67
APPENDIX 2. ETHICAL APPROVAL
APPENDIX 3. SUPERVISOR MEETING RECORD FORM 67

APPENDIX 4. PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORM 70
71
74

APPENDIX 5. QUESTIONNAIRE 75

APPENDIX 6. DISSERTATION PROPOSAL 82

Lists of figures

Figure 1. WOM Communication (Erkan, 2016). 11

Figure 2. Kotler’s 5A model (2016) 16

Figure 3. Customers’ communications 17

Figure 4. Sussman and Siegal’s acceptance model 25

Figure 5. Research model 32

Figure 6. Gender of sampling 43

Figure 7. Age group of sampling 44

Figure 8. Occupation group status of sampling 45

Figure 9. Income group of sampling 46

Figure 1. WOM Communication (Erkan, 2016). 86

Lists of tables

Table 1. Observed variables 34

Table 2. Results from Cronbach Alpha test 47

Table 3. Total Variance Explained 48

Table 4. The Rotated Component Matrix 49

Table 5. Regression coefficients 50

Table 6. Hypothesis results 51

Words count: 15,984

Chapter 1: Introduction

This first chapter will provide overall information and background for this research paper.
The current of using online reviews as a marketing approach in advertising in a global
context as well as in Vietnam is also highlighted in this part. This creates a strong
background for the next chapter of this research. Furthermore, the research questions will
also be determined in this chapter.

1.1. Research background

With the explosion of information, the advent and development of the Internet have changed
the method of seeking information about consumer products. With these useful features,
today the Internet has become the main source of information for a large number of tourists to
use in the decision-making process for choosing products and services, which results in

significantly changing in consumer behaviour of customers. The Internet allows customers to
share their opinions about experiences and experiences of products and services with
countless other consumers. The Internet is a worldwide computer network that allows
communication between millions of users and access to various resources, people can give
personal experiences, thoughts, opinions and easily reach out to communities around the
globe. The Internet has provided a better way for consumers to gather product information
and advice regarding consumption from other consumers through online reviews. Consumers
can submit comments, feedbacks and product reviews on weblogs, discussion forums, rating
sites, and social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc.), this has led to the creation of
a diverse online review community. Online reviews from previous consumers will be used by
potential customers as they now begin to be interested in gathering more information from
customers who have experience using the product. The term "online reviews" is increasingly
mentioned and is an important information channel to assist customers in search and
decision-making activities, including reviews related to mobile devices.

A DoubleClick survey in 2016 also found that for many types of products, such as
electronics, home and personal products, product review websites influence the purchasing
decisions of customers (DoubleClick, 2016). In addition, due to the peculiarities of Internet
communication, online reviews deserve the attention of marketing researchers and managers.
Mobile phone equipment is a really necessary product for people, especially in the era of the
information technology boom. Currently, there are many types of mobile devices on the
market with different brands, domestically produced or imported from abroad. According to
the latest report of market research firm Kantar Worldpanel Vietnam, the Vietnamese mobile
phone market is growing very hot, with an average speed of about 20% per year and an
average of 1 to 2 new mobile phones brands entered the market (Kantar, 2017). This shows
that the mobile phone market in Vietnam is growing and more diverse. Standing in such a
market, consumers who want to buy a quality and the appropriate product must carefully
research the product information from different sources before making a purchase.
Consumers often seek information and decide to buy a mobile device based on information
from relatives and friends, advice at the point of sale or through forums. In which the form of

searching for information via the Internet is used by many consumers and is increasingly
popular. In addition, consumers tend to be more proactive in sharing commercial information
and trust in information provided by other consumers rather than information provided by
sellers or marketers. Therefore, understanding the impact of online reviews on the decision to
buy mobile devices can help managers in getting the product to consumers.

However, with the strong interactive nature and extremely fast spread of information on the
Internet, unfavourable online reviews for businesses can be the source of an unintended
communication crisis. Therefore, business owners and marketers need to understand and
manage these communication flows. In fact, the study of the role of online reviews or more
generally, eWOM (e-Worth Of Mouth) in the process of finding information on online
customers has been interested by many researchers. However, most studies focus on
understanding the impact of information in online reviews on branding and customer
engagement in the fields of general merchandise and other services. There have not been
many studies focusing on the impact of online reviews on the mobile device business market.
Hence, the research paper will explore the impact of online reviews on the choice of mobile
devices.

1.2. Research questions

As mentioned above, as there is a lack of empirical findings and studies on the effects of
online reviews of mobile device purchasing motive, especially in Vietnam, the research paper
aims at identifying and determining elements of digital reviews that influence the buying
intention by seeking answers for following questions:

● What parts of the digital evaluations affect customers’ purchase decisions?

● What elements of the digital reviewers affect the customers’ purchase

decisions?

● What is the effect of consumers’ characteristics on their purchase intention?

Chapter 2: Literature Review

In this second chapter, the author will discuss the previous researches of Word-of-mouth and
Electronic word-of-mouth and demonstrate what are the differences between them.
Furthermore, a section of discussion about online reviews will be included, following by
examining what are the factors that might have influences customers’ final purchase intention
of mobile devices, which consists of aspects of the reviews, personalities of the reviewers and
of the targeted audience.

2.1. Word-of-mouth and Electronic word-of-mouth

2.1.1. Word-of-mouth

Word of mouth marketing (WOM) has been studied and mentioned in many marketing
materials, scientific research projects from the past over 50 years. According to Johan Arndt
(1967), one of the world's leading oral communication pioneers, WOM can be interpreted as
communication between two individuals “whom the receiver perceives as non-commercial,
concerning a brand, product, or a service” (Arndt, 1967). Non-commercial characters are well
received by people who speak without commercial intention namely promoting or selling
products. This implies the typical aspects of word of mouth as person-to-person
communication, only applicable for the age before the advent of the Internet. Then,
Silverman (1997) defined word of mouth as a form of information about products, services or
ideas among people who are not related to the company that provides the product or service

(Silverman, 1997). According to Patton (2000), the definition of word of mouth is a message
about an organization's product or service, which includes the belief and quality of products
or services transmitted from one person to another. Stokes and Lomax (2002) argued that

word of mouth is an effective way of communicating among individuals in relation to certain
products and services. Along this line, Kirby and Marsden (2006) defined word of mouth as
words, communication between people, between recipients and communicators related to a
brand, a product, a service or information on the market. Most recently, Word of Mouth
Marketing Association (WOMMA) defines it as “the act of consumers providing information
to other consumers” (WOMMA, 2005). This definition is deemed considerably wide-ranging
and applicable to not only conventional methods (offline) and word of mouth on the digital
platforms (online). Word of mouth is considered as a form of informal marketing
communication as it uses customers as its representatives to convey advertising information
as described in the figure below:

Figure 1. WOM Communication (Erkan, 2016).
WOM can be started directly between consumers (consumer-generated) which has no
external effects or started purposely by marketers (marketer-generated) as a marketing
activity (Evans and Erkan, 2014). Arndt (1967) discussed that consumers consider consumer-
generated WOM as being more trustworthy than marketer-generated WOM (Arndt, 1967).
Furthermore, in the literature, WOM can also be categorised as positive WOM and negative
WOM. The definition of positive WOM is being information related to the product which
conveyed by satisfied customers (Holmes and Lett, 1977), while negative WOM has been
described as dissatisfying experiences with the products or services being communicated
between friends and relatives (Blodgett et al., 1993). Lee and Cranage (2014) believed that
negative WOM can produce a seriously potential destructive impact on a company’s image
and reputation, which leads to affecting sales and market share. The reason for this is
discussed as WOM being in an uncontrollable environment and is very difficult to measure

(Erkan, 2016). East et al. (2008) argued that positive WOM is more influential than negative
WOM, while Chevalier and Mayzlin (2006) believed negative WOM has more significant
effects on consumers.

2.1.2. Electronic word-of-mouth

With the advent of the Internet, a revolution in communication took place. Consumers begin
to shift from face-to-face communication directly to online forms (Pollach, 2006). The
Internet is a perfect environment for consumers to express and share their feelings about a
product or service with everyone. With the Internet, people do not communicate with each
other but rather force them to use an assistive device that connects to the internet like a
computer or phone to interact by texting, sharing pictures and clips. WOM type in the context
of the global electronic communication environment is called an electronic word of mouth
(electronic word of mouth, eWOM for short) (Chu and Kim, 2011). Hennig-Thurau et al.
(2004) defined eWOM as any kind of statement, both positive or negative, made by actual,
potential or even former customers relating to a product and are available on the Internet for
people and establishments to get access (Thorsten Hennig-Thurau, 2004). In other words,
eWOM can also be known as WOM on the Internet and online, digital platforms (Goldenberg
and Muller, 2001).

Like traditional offline WOM, eWOM can either be consumer-generated or marketer-
generated. Although the information on the Internet is usually created by marketers and
distributed through company-owned websites or social media platforms, people can still share
their personal opinions to others with media content creations such as texts, pictures or videos
(Evans and Erkan, 2014). Cheung & Thadani (2012) listed different types of eWOM
platforms including social media networks, shopping websites, review websites, blogs or
discussion forums.

Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) has long been evaluated as an influential marketing tool
(Bickart and Schindler, 2001; Kumar and Benbasat, 2006). Some previous studies have
shown the impact of eWOM from the above foundation on consumer buying intentions
(Bickart and Schindler, 2001; See-To and Ho, 2014). However, the invention of social media
platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram ... has transformed the communication battle
and introducing unconventional facets of eWOM. eWOM now is not only the marketing tool
for marketers to deliver a message about their products or service but it helps to spread

marketing message on large scale by viral campaigns on social networks (Miller and
Lammas, 2010). And the viral ability of eWOM on social media is considered to make a great

influence on both branding of the company and the buying decision of customers. This is
because by giving purchasers permission to connect and exchange information with their
current digital platforms, people now are able to offering their personal experiences and
opinions about the brands or services to other people ranging from families, friends or even
strangers visiting the forms (Chu and Kim, 2011). And the viral of exchange in information
and opinions of current customers about products and service makes potential customer
remind about that products and services, which helps to increase brand-awareness (Al
Halbusi and Tehseen, 2018). Besides, together with the popularity of social media, customers
have tendency to search for reviews and recommendations about products on social networks
with their friends and relatives. And they tend to choose products which have a wide range of
positive reviews and get more discussion from their network (Poturak and Turkyilmaz, 2018).
From the literature review on eWOM above, it can be seen that the viral of online review on
social media channels make a contribution to purchasing decision of customers. But there is
still have no specific research paper on how eWOM has an effect on buying decision of
mobile devices.

2.1.3. The differences between WOM and EWOM

Unlike traditional word of mouth (WOM) that must communicate via face-to-face speech,
eWOM can easily convey information by sending messages, emails, comments on forums,
social networks, review sites ... Most of the information on the internet is presented in text
form, stored and available for long periods of time (Park and Lee, 2008), so eWOM messages
are easily seen and gathered by anyone, regardless of time and place, with the access to the
Internet (Chen and Xie, 2008). This helps to overcome the weakness of WOM, can only
spread information in the local social network (Brown and Reingen, 1987), so eWOM
advertisement has the potential to grow and increase in its speed (Hung and Li, 2007).

However, there are also potential risks in the advancement of eWOM. As the WOM
information is highly reliable because the information is mainly provided by trusted
individuals around them such as relatives or close companions (Ratchford et al., 2001),
provided information from eWOM , however, is not completed so that anyone can share and
spread information. Therefore, the source of the eWOM message can come from consumers
who are not familiar, so it is difficult for recipients to determine the level of information
quality and the reliability of the information posted (Chatterjee, 2006). Therefore, the content
and origin of eWOM information are important factors affecting eWOM's reliability (Park et
al., 2007).

The next difference between these two forms is control, eWOM information will be easier to
control. Online sellers can control the exact location of messages spread on the website or
push positive reviews on the front page of the web to attract consumers' attention (Park and
Kim, 2008). But the information from WOM cannot do this because it spreads through direct
face-to-face communication between consumers. That's why it is difficult for WOM to
measure more effectively than eWOM. Dellarocas (2003) stated that eWOM is considered
both as a competent, cost-effective advertising method and as a helpful, significant
information source for consumers when they are in need of advice of the purchase.

From these above-mentioned analyses, it can be seen that both WOM and eMOM have a
great influence on the process of decision making of customers. Davis (2005) has shown that
consumer information exchange have a significant influence on air conditioner purchases.
Chevalier and Mayzlin (2006) demonstrate that digital opinions on amazon.com and
barnesandnoble.com platforms influence the number of purchasing of the given books. Duan
and coworkers (2008) confirm the nuances in emotion (positive or negative) and the number
of verbal messages having the influence (positive or negative) on the theatre’s profits of
movies (Duan et al., 2008). Word of mouth (positive or negative) has an effect (positive or
negative) on the purchasing behaviour of buyers, hence, changing the sales of the business.
The literature review from previous studies and research showed that the exchange and
discussion about products between customers make a great impact on buying decision of

customers. However, these previous researches have not mentioned how the spreading of
information about products affect the buying behaviour of customers for mobile devices.
Therefore, in this dissertation, it is important to clarify how reviews and information
exchange between customers influence on the sale of mobile devices.

2.2. Online product reviews

Hennig-Thurau et al. (2004) defined online reviews are any positive or negative statements
made by potential, actual, or former customers about a product or company, provided to a
customer or other organisations via the Internet. It is possible to say online reviews, as
eWOM's source of information, play a very important role in online shopping behaviour. In
addition, online assessment is not only a form of online word of mouth but also an important
means of marketing because many consumers search for online reviews as the first step to
purchase (Godes and Mayzlin, 2009).

Studies on the frequency of online user reviews showed that about 41.1% of users shop for
reviews whenever they make a purchase; 26% said they often read reviews (von Helversen et
al., 2018). Most consumers tend to use online reviews as an information channel (63.8%),
and they also like to use blogs (27%), shopping websites (17%), portal sites information
(15%) to share specific information regarding products or services they have used
(Holleschovsky and Constantinides, 2016). Common sources of information for visitors to
share their travel experiences are often online review sites like TripAdvisor, Yahoo! Travel,
Igougo, and Lonely Planet. Besides, the online assessment also has an impact on hotel
business. Research on the TripAdvisor page shows that more than 61% of visitors trust online
reviews - they even access social media sites and check split images. However, as many as
79% of visitors said there would be a bad reaction to the hotel when reading a negative
review of the customer who already used the service. In a Harvard University study, one
found an increase in a star about hotel products and services on the Yelp website that could
drive a 5% or more increase in sales (Quambush, 2015).

Ranking and rating instantly became a significant and reliable source of information for
customers. In most of the surveys, 95% of respondents said that in the past they had seek
advice from their customer - customer comments and evaluation (Holleschovsky and
Constantinides, 2016). Other people (24%) reported that they did take reviews into
consideration while they were doing shopping, and to 18-44 year-old buyers, the number
stood at 30% (Holleschovsky and Constantinides, 2016). Besides, ratings and comments were
at the second place, only after price, among the essential elements having the effect on the
buying decision of customers. Other components: consultation from close relationships,
product brands and no shipping fees have lessen influence (Elwalda and Lu, 2014). The
group of customers at the age of 18 to 44 (61%) tend to trust consumers' online opinions than
those of their friends and relatives (Holleschovsky and Constantinides, 2016). Buyers
perceive the readiness of products as a significant element when deciding to buy extravagant
items such as electronic devices (82%), gadgets (80%), and computers (80%). It is more
important to increase product prices to reviews. For buyers, product reviews are an important
factor when considering purchasing expensive items such as electronics (82%), appliances
(80%), and computers (80%) (Jiang and Benbasat, 2004). Similarly, for mobile phone devices
which are considered as the average expensive items with various brands, designs and
features as provided in the market nowadays (Sata, 2013), which make customers need more
considerations when making the final buying decision. Karjaluoto et al. (2005) in their

research showed that price, brand, customer service, guarantee and recommendations from
previous customers are the most influential elements on buying decision of customer for
mobile devices. Along this line, Karjaluoto and his colleagues (2003) also pointed out that
price and brand of mobile devices have the greatest impact on buying behaviour of customers
after they received same reviews and information from friends and relatives about mobile
products. This showed the fact that for electronic devices such as mobile phones, besides
price, brands, designs, functions and guarantee service, reviews and opinions from previous
customers play an important role in the process of purchasing decision making.

In order to build trust in customers, negative evaluations are required (Lee and Cranage,

2014). Most consumers find negative reviews as a way to confirm their credibility, as well as
to identify points in negative reviews that are related to each other (von Helversen et al.,
2018). In other words, even a bad review shows a clearer view of product performance. Most
people think that the negativity of this person can play an important or positive factor for
them and thereby change their expectations accordingly. Surprisingly, retail marketers are
showing greater results in acquiring the trust from customers. The survey showed that the
majority of purchasers (53%) reviewed that retail websites provide them with reliable
reviews, while the number in the media is only 39% (Chen and Xie, 2008).

2.3. How digital evaluation influence the buying outcome of mobile devices

The journey of purchasing customers' products according to Attention - Interest (Desire -
Action) model has been 120 years old and now its old age is no longer suitable for the current
era of technological development. Therefore, in Marketing 4.0, Philip Kotler introduced a
new model of customers shopping journey, that is Model 5A (Awareness – Identify needs;
Appeal - Attention; Ask - Ask, find out; Action – Action; Advocate – Support (Kotler et al.,
2016).

Figure 2. Kotler’s 5A model (2016)

Stage 1: Awareness - Identify needs

This is the first stage in customers' purchase of 5A. When consumers have any problems that
arise in their lives, there will be demand and consumers will seek to meet that demand.
Therefore, at this stage, consumers will be exposed to brands, with advertisements, or even
passively by family, friends or influencer. In this period, if businesses have ads and attractive
incentive programs, hitting the psychology of consumers will have a huge advantage.

Stage 2: Appeal - Attention

After receiving passive brand information, among all those brands, consumers will only pay
attention to which brands make them strong impressions. The brand selection of consumers is
affected by the impact of the surrounding community.

Stage 3: Ask - Ask, find out

This is the period when consumers start to actively explore information about the brand
which they have memorized at stage 2. They can search for information by going through the
media, family, friends or even from the brand itself. In addition, it is the consumers who
share the same interest that actively connects with each other: the questioners, the
respondents, the introducers ... This makes the appeal of that brand possibly increase or
reduce.

Figure 3. Customers’ communications

Stage 4: Action - Action

After the inquiry period, consumers will make a purchase decision. However, this period does
not stop there but also relates to the process of using products and after-sales services.

Stage 5: Advocate - Support

The final stage in the customer's journey to buy 5A model is Support. It is reflected in
consumers' loyalty to that brand and introduction, sharing with friends and relatives using the
product.

A special thing in the 5A model shopping process is that consumers do not have to perform
step by step, but they can burn the stage, this creates very high flexibility. Maybe after
knowing the brand through the introduction and evaluation of the community, consumers will
actively buy products without asking for more opinions from others.

In the model by Philip Kotler, it can be seen that in the stage 3, online reviews play an
important role in the purchasing decision of customers. The digital technology market,
especially the mobile phone business, is growing rapidly. Smartphone products are constantly
launched with various hardware designs and parameters, which gives customer various

choices for mobile phone devices. This also leads to the fact that customers need to make
more consideration between mobile phone brands before making choice (Shabrin et al.,
2017). Therefore, customers tend to seek more recommendation, feedback and comment from
previous customers to make careful consideration and comparison between mobile device
providers (Korfiatis et al., 2012). In addition, each store does not have a uniform price. This
makes ordinary consumers without much technological knowledge feel very confused when
deciding to invest in a new device. As a result, consumers for mobile technologies have a
tendency to seek for recommendations or suggestions from their friends, families and
especially online customers who used to buy products and leave reviews (Nutley et al., 2013).
Research by Filieri showed that customers tend to believe and value useful reviews which are
detail information about products with video and images, especially from influencers or
experts in that field of products (Filieri, 2016). However, Li and co-workers (2013) pointed
out that reviews and feedbacks come from friends and related people on social network have
great impact on decision making of purchase of customers and customers tend to believe
more in recommendations from their friends and relatives instead of influencers because
customers suppose that these influencers are making advertisements for brands (Li et al.,
2013). There are various online comments and evaluation that have more effect on the
purchasing of smartphone buyers including reviews on product designs, price, quality and
customer service (Evans and Erkan, 2016) For consumers who don't know too much about
technology, the first thing that draws their attention is the design of a phone. The design also
creates styles for users. For professional users, they can skip the design element to choose the
configuration, to make the most of the digital experience on the product but that number is
not much. Most users are impressed by the design of a product before deciding to spend it on
it. Therefore, reviews on the product design of smartphones tend to be made on YouTube so

that buyers can have chance to see the product design and gain more viewers (Uddin et al.,
2014).

Price is a factor that almost users must care about. For the majority of users, cheap models
always attract special attention, especially when those models share the same configuration
and many other features (Karjaluoto et al., 2005). That is why, even if customers have chosen
the model they might probably like, users still spend a lot of effort to consult on many
different websites to find the place with the most reasonable price. The most logical reason is
that companies often sell products with promotion policies, sometimes giving a memory card,

back cover or some software packages. Therefore, the list price at each store may fluctuate
quite a lot and users need to search and select the criteria that suit them.

Another content of reviews that are preferred by customers are reviews on customer service
of mobile phone stores. It contains attitude of salesperson, guarantee policy and after-buying
services. A good salesperson who is able to influence a user's decision to buy a phone, on the
contrary, a lack of attitude will make the buyer feel disrespectful and change his decision.
There are even cases where the user has chosen a model of his or her choice but is willing to
give up more money because of the attractive introduction of a certain model from the seller.

The survey on customer behaviour when choosing mobile devices showed that while there
are no regulations on the number of reviews, ⅔ consumers (66%) think they read from 1 to
10 before deciding to buy (Sata, 2013). The optimal number depends on the product: for
example, it will be large when considering the purchase of TVs and cameras, with a variety
of prices and functions, but for mobile devices which have other considerations such as price,
safety, efficiency and length of the guarantee. Long reviews tend to have better quality than
reviews that are only 1-2 lines long when reflecting the user experience. A survey in the
research on online customer reviews by Filieri (2016) showed that customers tend to look for
detail reviews which include description and image about products, which are enough
information and evaluation from previous customers before making any purchasing decision.

This resulted in long reviews with detail information by products are more useful with
customers than general reviews (Filieri, 2016). Moogs, CEO of PowerReviews, a consultancy
company on building online review system, evaluated that reviews will be better when they
happen more recently. Moog said: "There are evaluations that are more valuable than other
reviews" and he is focusing on finding those important reviews. In case the product is
favoured, thus, sold at a huge price, the assessment would bring a greater influence. Buyers
utilize those online comments to evaluate products instantly; however, the evaluation has to
be highly available and easy to understand.

In an omnichannel market, the expectation of reviews is widely circulated. 70% of mobile
shoppers said if mobile retailers' websites and apps provide reviews, they are more likely to
buy products, especially for younger customers, "more and more reminded come, the more
popular it is" (Shabrin et al., 2017). Companies want to avoid displaying goods that will be
provided at each interactive point. Marketers need dynamic reviews in mobile channels and
stores with alerts, short-range communication (NFC) technology, QR codes, SMS messages,
printing and digital signs - or concessions in the competition (Shabrin et al., 2017). If

salespersons do not put much emphasis on the online reviews in digital stores, “consumers
will use their phones to search for information elsewhere," Moog said.

2.4. Factors that might affect the influence of online reviews on consumers

purchase decisions for mobile technology devices

It is undeniable that online reviews play a vital role in the process of buying behaviour of
customers (Filieri, 2015, Jiménez & Mendoza, 2013; Schlosser, 2011). These previous
research and studies have proved that online evaluation and comments from prior buyers as
well as friends and people around potential customers show a tremendous influence on
buying decision of potential customers and mobile devices are not an exception (Zhang et al.,
2014). However, it is necessary to identify and explore elements that have impacts on the

usefulness of online reviews on customer’s purchasing decision while previous researches
have not clearly mentioned about them (Korfiatis et al., 2012). Therefore, this part will focus
on analysing factors that can make an influence on the effectiveness of online reviews, which
include three main factors: characteristics of reviews, characteristics of reviewers and
characteristics of the audience.

2.4.1. Characteristics of reviews

Sandra and her colleagues showed that good reviews which are supposed to be useful and
helpful for customers in decision-making process should provide a comprehensive view of
products and services including the good and bad points of a product for a target audience. A
good review should be honest and impartial (Nutley et al., 2013). It is effective when reviews
contain visible images or videos for products to show customers the real imagination about
the products they are going to buy. And research by Filieri also proved that reviews with
visual images and videos are more persuasive than reviews only text without any images or
videos (Filieri, 2016). Besides, putting the reviewed products next to the review of other
products, comparing the strengths and weaknesses of the products so that the customers can
have an overall view. This also helps customers know that reviewers have really researched,
they have a wide knowledge of many products in the same field. This is also the way
reviewers suggest to readers about other products, which may be more suitable for them. And
as a result, this type of reviews will get more views from customers and have more impacts to
customers than reviews without any comparison with other products in the same field (Evans
and Erkan, 2014). It is also necessary to describe to the customers exactly who will be the
best customers to use this product or service. This may include factors such as specific age,

benefits, and features for each situation and condition, which gives customers more evidence
to make decisions (Salehan and Kim, 2014).

Besides the characteristics of online review content which need to be detail and honesty, the
context of online reviews is taken into consideration as a crucial element that makes online

reviews become useful in the eyes of potential customers in different levels with different
contexts (Zhang et al., 2014). Park and Lee (2009) showed that reviews that are published on
trustworthy websites or channels that are visited and rated by a large number of people tend
to be more persuasive than reviews on other channels. Moreover, reviews on online
communities or websites that are not commercial purposed tend to gain more trust from
potential customers than websites or channels that are created for marketing purpose (Wang
et al., 2015). This can be explained by the fact that customers assume that reviews on
commercial-purposed websites are created to attract their attention and try to persuade them
to buy products, therefore, they tend to not put trust in these reviews (Wang et al., 2015).
Together with the development of social network, online reviews from people on social
channels tend to gain more trust from customers (Kanthawongs, 2018). Another channel for
reviews are becoming popular and gain more customers to follow and seek for advices is
YouTube (Zaitceva, 2018). Reviews made on YouTube are seeking more than reviews on
websites due to the fact that in YouTube audiences can see visually products and follow the
process of using products, which provides customer more vivid description (Zaitceva, 2018).

When consumers search for online reviews, the number of reviews makes opinions more
diverse and it represents the popularity of a product (Cheung and Thadani, 2012). Reading
many reviews of other consumers may reduce consumer anxiety when deciding to buy
because they think other consumers have also purchased these products (Chatterjee, 2006).
The results of a number of empirical studies (Park et al., 2007; Sher and Lee, 2009) showed
that the number of reviews positively affects consumer awareness of review reliability (Lee,
2009).

Finally, consumers in the online environment always want to find the information they need
in the fastest way without having to spend much effort, so that review information in the
online community needs to be appropriate to the topic of customers are interested in, which
means that reviews must be relevant with product customers are looking for information
(Sussman and Siegal, 2003). Dunk (2004) proposed the relevance of information as an
important component in the process of deciding to use information in reviews (Dunk, 2004).

And Sullivan (1999) argued that the more review is targeting more customer groups, the