The Effect of Electronic Word-of-Mouth upon Purchasing Cell Phone on the Internet

Abstract

This research has divided the consumer shopping behaviors into pre- and post-purchase models in order to conduct a further discussion. Product attributes, gathering Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) and pre-purchase customer satisfaction are included in the pre-purchase model, and the post-purchase model covers product attributes, spreading eWOM and pose-purchase customer satisfaction. A structural equation model (SEM) is built to analyze the differences. The results reveal that: (1) Product attributes have significantly and positively influenced both eWOM (gathering positive and negative eWOMs before purchasing, and spreading positive and negative eWOMs after purchasing) and post-purchase customer satisfaction; (2) The positive eWOMs gathered before purchasing have positive significant effects on pre-purchase customer satisfaction; (3) The post-purchase customer satisfaction exerts positive significant effects upon spreading positive eWOMs and has negative significant effects on spreading negative eWOMs; (4) In the pre-purchase framework, gathering information on eWOMs has a full mediation effect, and it shows the customer satisfaction has an partial mediation effect in the post-purchase framework.