Discussion of Online Reviews’ Impacts on Consumers’ Behaviors

Abstract

The development of the Internet and technology has provided the public with an open space to share their thoughts without any impediments. Online consumer review has gained popularity in researching information as references before making decisions to reduce perceived risks. As many prior studies have done research on online reviews’ impacts on hospitalities and their potential customers. Thus, this study will be focusing on the influences on online retailers and their potential buyers, assessing the aspects and the extent how the reviews would impact their potential consumers’ purchase decisions. Meanwhile, the causes of the impacts and ongoing issues of online consumer review in recent years will also be discussed. The paper mainly uses the literature research method, analyzing the scholar articles mostly from recent five years. It is found that review valence and volume both have a significant impact in creating trust between potential consumers and online retailers and thus will influence people’s purchase intentions – even though review volume seems to be less effective than review valence due to various reasons. Visual contents and stimuli causing cognitive/affective responses are the two main reasons leading to such impacts. Besides, as the management system of online consumer reviews is not sound yet, ongoing issues such as fake reviews are still a tough question that required to be solved in the next few years.