Research On The Influence Of Internet Word-of-Mouth On College Students Purchase Intention

With the rapid development of internet today, the network marketing hasbecome an important sales platform with the internet being the carrier. In networkmarketing, internet word-of-mouth (IWOM)) is the main channel for consumer to getthe product information. Research on the influence of IWOM spread on purchaseintention provides the basis for the enterprise’s IWOM marketing decision, and hastheoretical and practical significance.The thesis is based on chinese and foreign scholars’ communication researchabout IWOM, and on the basis of predecessors’ points of view. Study models werecreated about IWOM’s influence on college students’ purchase intention from thepositive and negative aspects respectively. The study models were conducted fromthree aspects including eight factors to research IWOM’s influence on collegestudents’ purchase intention. Three aspects include IWOM information senders’characteristics, the IWOM receiver’s characteristic and the characteristics of IWOMinformation; the eight factors include: the sender’s professional, IWOM informationquantity and IWOM visual clues, the receiver’s purchase urgency, risk ability, trusttendency, brand image and product involvement extents. On the basis of theoreticalanalysis, college students were selected as the research object, the researchhypotheses were proposed and the questionnaires were designed and conducted. Theperceive interests or perceived risk, and trust were treated as the intermediatevariable, study model was constructed about influence of the IWOM on purchaseintention, and structural equation was used to validate it.The results show that, as for positive IWOM, there is no significant influence ofrisks taking on purchase intention, and the rest factors can significantly influencepurchase intention; as for the negative IWOM, there is no significant influence of asender’s professional and the receiver’s brand image on the final purchase intention.Finally, according to the results of the validation of the hypotheses, pieces of advice about mouth marketing are provided to the enterprises.