Research On The Impact Of Electric Vehicles’ Online Word-of-mouth On Consumer Purchase

Electric vehicle represents the future development direction of science and technology.The development of EV industry can effectively alleviate the energy shortage,environmental degradation and other resource and environmental problems.EV industry is one of the seven strategic emerging industries in China,which has an important strategic position.Although electric vehicles have the advantages of high efficiency and low energy consumption,in practice,traditional fuel vehicles have more advantages in production cost and performance,firmly occupying the market.The lack of demand scale is a key obstacle to develope EV industry.How to accelerate the market diffusion is an urgent problem in the evolution of EV industry.In order to deeply understand the influence of EV’s online word-of-mouth on consumers’ purchase,this paper analyzes the characteristics,information types and measurement dimensions of EV’s online word-of-mouth.Based on the theory of consumer behavior,starting from the valence of online word-of-mouth and the number of online word-of-mouth,this paper constructs a theoretical model of how EV’s online word-of-mouth affect consumers’ purchase.After that,we collect the data of EV’s word-of-mouth from Autohome website to conduct the emotional analysis of the text,and build the calculation model of online word-of-mouth valence under the framework of structural equation model,and then quantify the online word-of-mouth valence of EV.Finally,the panel data model is established based on the previous theoretical research and empirical analysis.The influence of the online WOM valence and online WOM volume on consumers’ purchase is tested through the empirical analysis.The endogenous problem is solved by the IV method,and the interaction effect between valence and volume of online WOM is tested.Automobile samples are grouped according to different standards to test the heterogeneity of online WOM effect.The results show that the information types of online WOM and the six attributes(space,appearance,outlook,control,power and consumption)of EV have different contribution to the valence of online WOM.In the valence of online WOM,the experiential information occupies a higher weight than the search information.To the experiential information,the information about control is more important than that about power and consumption,and to the search information,the information about appearance is more important than outlook and space.The valence and volume of EV’s online WOM have a significant positive impact on consumers’ purchase behavior.At the same time,there is a reverse interaction effect betweenthe valence and volume.That is to say,with volume of online WOM increasing,the effect of online WOM’s valence on the purchase of EV will be weakened.Similarly,with valence of online WOM increasing,the impact of online WOM’s volume on the purchase of EV will also be weakened.This research enriches the theoretical research of online word-of-mouth,consumers’ purchase and other related aspects,and provides enlightenment for the promotion of electric vehicle market.