Nowadays, many parents prefer to buy their baby clothes from an online store because of the convenience, quality and variety of products. The result of this research can help online retailers adapt their strategy to achieve impact assessments or new marketing campaigns that encourage customers to purchase through the online store. Thai Retailer Association, 2014) This means that Thai people will increasingly buy merchandise from online stores in the future.
Many parents prefer to buy their baby clothes in the online store because of convenience, quality and variety of products. In terms of information, online stores offer different forms to serve customers, such as video sharing, photo, text, individually or in any combination. For marketing strategy, it does not post a new media or make a discount campaign only, but it should have consumer review to support online store rating and credibility of online store.
Many online children's clothing stores allow their customer to share reviews after that customer has purchased their product. However, the online store will only consider keeping positive reviews that make a good perception of their online store. Furthermore, the other objective of this study is to understand how parents consider consumer review before purchasing children's clothing in the online store.
The scope of this study focuses on an online store of baby clothes that allows consumers to review their comment in negative and positive comment.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Theoretical Foundation
- eWOM
- Source credibility
- Social Homophily
- Source Expertise
- Price
- Promotion
On the other hand, Middle Brook's (1974) findings showed that differences in recipients' attitudes affect source credibility. There is clear uniformity in communication theories that message recipients relate the credibility of the source to the communicator's beneficial character or ethos that conveys knowledge, moral standards, and goodwill to the message recipients. Be that as it may, there are two most visible elements that positively influence source credibility, namely: perceived expertise and source reliability.
This requires a coordinated approach to message design, delivery and, most importantly, adaptation to a given audience and current media situation. Social homophily, or similarity between sender and receiver, emerges as a central component of the origin attraction model (McGuire, 1985). Social homophily can be differentiated by demographic (age, gender, education, occupation) and/or perceived characteristics (values, preferences) (Lazarsfeld and Merton 1964; Gilly et al., 1998).
Due to the reduced information, evaluation in an online context mainly results from the content of the website. Receiving and viewing a viral message elicits an emotional response from the recipient (Gilly et al., 1998). Following the source credibility model, the perceived expertise of the sender is an important determinant of credibility (Hovland and Weiss, 1951).
He assumes that the sender has material and especially useful information due to his high expertise (Bansal and Voyer, 2000). Receivers choose senders with high expertise as they expect them to provide highly qualified information. A sender with high expertise appears more credible, as the receiver has little reason to doubt the correctness of this information due to the knowledge and competence of the communicator (Kroeber-Riel and Weinberg, 2003).
Because of their extensive knowledge and experience, experts should be better able to persuade other consumers and thus appear more credible (von Wangenheim and Bayón, 2004). Price may be a factor often used as evidence to judge quality, status-conscious consumers tend to use a price signal also as an alternative indicator of prestige (Berkowitz et al. 1992, Groth and McDaniel 1993). Cornan, 2006 Social Homophily Mostly people, they .. are looking for something that is similar to their perception.
Hypotheses Development
- Conceptual framework
METHODOLOGY
Topic Selection
An online baby clothes store is popular online store for new parents in this era. This parent prefers to buy from the online store because of the price and product range. Also, this parent tends to be part of the decision for other parents to shop online.
Consumer review is a popular tool and interesting to study for an online baby clothing business owner.
Data Collection
- Primary Data Depth Interview
- Secondary Data
The purpose of this task is to share your opinion and exchange experiences with another parent. It will be easy if the researcher individually arranges a meeting in a convenient place for each person. On the other hand, an in-depth interview is flexible so that the researcher can ask a question later by e-mail or phone if they want to know more.
The secondary data is very helpful and useful because of less time consumption and cost effectiveness. Based on the theoretical basis of literature review, the author makes it as hypotheses that help the author to analyze which variable affects the consumer review on the purchase decision in an online baby clothing store. Then the response of the respondents will prove hypotheses in this study which are harmonious or in conflict with theories.
RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DATA ANALYSIS
- eWOM
- Source Credibility
- Social Homophily
- Source Expertise
- Price
- Promotion
The result represents 80% of respondents, they believe that consumers are trustworthy, who assess the influence of the product on the purchase decision. Furthermore, the reason is people who review the product, they can increase interesting of the product if they know people who present the product in question. Yes, I think so, because if people who review the product are the famous person about baby product, it will make the product more interesting.
The reason is that they concentrate on products whose brand and quality they know. That reflects the fact that some customers think that baby wipes are not a necessity to use people who are credible to review, but it should focus on the product. Many people tend to believe people with a similar character and idea more than people with a different character.
Some respondents think similarly characteristic of reviewer forces them to believe information and make decision easier than people who are different character because it is harmonious of society. While 40% of respondents think similar character can not persuade them to decide to buy, because it is necessity for baby cloths. The result between yes and no, it is very similar and difficult to judge which one is the most effective.
But respondents who answer no focus on the product and their preferences, and therefore feel that evaluators cannot engage them and change their perception. From the 10th interview question, the result of 70% of the sample is that the respondents think that it is not necessary to use expertise to evaluate the product because they only focus on baby wipes and they have more experience as an evaluator on the product. In addition, the focus should be on the style and aesthetics of the clothing rather than the experience of the appraiser.
For 30% of respondents, they think differently, they focus on people who test many products and they want to share their experience on the online store. In this case will focus on the customer getting consumer review before they know the price. It is general promotion such as discount, buy more get more or depending on season.
In this study, the researcher will focus on customer knowledge promotion before getting information from consumers' review as some negative comments. On the other hand, 40% of respondents who think promotion does not have an impact on the purchase decision because it is not value.
LIMITATIONS AND CONCLUSION
Limitations
Further Research
Conclusion and Recommendation
The customer cares about the trust of the product and service, but this information must come from people who know the background of the source. The customer will read the comments of the online store and the online community before deciding to buy the product. Many customers need to see people they know like celebrities or their friends reviewing this product because it makes them trust the product and this online store more than people they don't know.
Many customers consider the characteristics of the reviewer to be similar to them such as demographics (age / gender / location), lifestyle, values and preferences. Sourcing expertise is not necessary for consumer review, because many customers think that baby clothes depend on individual style that can always change. If the consumer thinks the product is good, but the price is not reasonable, they don't buy it.
Many customers said promotion makes them easier to buy because it can encourage them to buy more in terms of volume and next purchase. When compared to an online store that has no promotion, but it offers the same product and the same price, the customer will switch to another online store that has a good promotion. On the other hand, a good promotion can make them skip a negative comment from consumer review.
In addition, shipping and trust in the service, consumer reviews represent a higher quality of the product, which also represents a shipping guarantee. Many buyers consider the consumer rating because they would like to ensure that they get the product. In addition, the customer would like to see the service update that this online store is now available and the online store has a good service that responds to the customer in a timely manner.
Finally, all variables are important for consumer review and it can help consumer review to influence purchase decision. Nevertheless, each factor should be combined in different proportions for consumer review on online baby clothes store, because baby cloths are not complicated products. Moreover, consumer review for online baby clothing store, it supports the customer to trust in terms of good service and shipping guarantee.
R., 3.1: Factors Influencing Consumer Buying Behavior, Principles of Marketing 2.0, Chatper 3, Retrieved from http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/reader/5229#fwk-133234-ch03_s01. Retrieved from http://searchengineland.com/88-consumers-trust-online-reviews-much-personal-recommendations-195803 Pergamit, M., & Veum, J., (1999).
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
