Author(s)

Xinyuan Zhang

Corresponding Author

Xinyuan Zhang

ABSTRACT

With the rapid development of e-commerce industry, a term called electronic word of mouth becomes popular to help marketers gaining more sales via online shopping stores. The objective of this paper is to conduct a quantitative research and analyze the influence of online visual message to consumers’ purchase intention. Data were collected from Taobao, and a regression model was established based on the model of communication process to investigate the correlation between the number of visual message and sales among two kinds of product—search and experience. The study found that there is a positive relationship between the two variables investigated for “experience” products, whereas a negative relationship exists for “search” ones.

KEYWORDS

Electronic Word of Mouth; Model of Communication Process; E-commerce; Reviews