Asymmetric Effects Online Consumer Reviews -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Asymmetric Effects Online Consumer Reviews? Answer: Introducation Buyer behaviour can be understood as the systematic approach consumers follow when entering the purchase process and making the buying decisions. This can be seen as four step process which helps to understand the buyer behaviour at a microscopic level. Need recognition is the first step in the consumer buying process; this is a point at which a consumer becomes aware of existence of a functional or an emotional need. Hence, the marketers play an important role in need recognition by stimulating the need awareness in its marketing plan. Information search is conducted Post need recognition, consumer look forward to compare the products against a given set of criteria and also looks forward to evaluate other option. Marketers here have to focus on effective positioning and strong brand development to appear in customer information search (Solomon, 2014). In order to drive purchase and customer experience, customer loyalty and retention are very important to include in the marketing st rategies, when the company is looking for long term relation with the customers. Provide loyalty programs; add on selling efforts etc. help in building loyalty amongst the consumers. Customer arrives at a decision by combining all the information he has collected and evaluated with his need for product, he gets into a decision mode to buy the product. Everyone from his peers, subordinates, word of mouth, internet, blogs, reviews assist him in making the right decision (Khaniwale, 2015) Hence it can be said that Buying behaviour extremely impulsive in nature, but it is more like doing a systematic research on the product, and hence it leaves the current marketers a lot of gaps to fill in with their marketing strategy, one such part of the marketing strategy which influences the buying and purchasing behaviour of consumer is consumer reviews and Blogs. Internet has a global penetration of 46%, which means 3.419 Billion people are connected through Internet out of the total population of 7 Billion. Also the unique Social media users are 2.307 Billion and unique Mobile users add up tune to 3.790, the world can be seen more like a global village where every person is connected with internet. Internet thus opens a lot of avenues for the markets to promote their products and services and influences the customers buying behaviour(Poushter, 2016) Consumer review have a very strong role to play in influencing the buying behaviour of the customers, hence it is very important to learn and understand the impact and attitude of the costumer review on the consumers. According to one of the studies conducted in 2016 it has been shown that as many as 90% of the consumers read online review and an overall majority of 88% trust the online reviews and recommendation. It can be said that online reviews comes in handy to the customers when they are looking forward to buy a product, it helps them in in their purchase decision. Moreover it also makes sense as the customer reviews posted online are the reviews of people who have already used the product, and thus it makes more sense to trust their reviews. As mentioned earlier that the world has slowly but gradually transformed into a global Internet and hence a lot of information is available online which management the customer buying journey easy and filled with utmost certainty. Customer s these days put same or more amount of trust on the customer reviews as much they put it on their peers or closed ones, it has become that important aspect in customer purchase journey (Park Nicolou, 2015). The world today is changing; the buying habits of people are change and also the buying process. The days when people used to go to the malls, speak with the sales representatives, take their word on the product has been replaced by comments posted online by the customers. The shopping is now limited to Internet, thanks to a number of e-commerce sites which have eased the buying process for the consumers. Amazon, Alibaba, Flipkart, E-Bay are the e-commerce sites which work on a marketplace model and facilitates transaction between buyers and seller, they just act as a medium in connecting the buyer to seller and facilitate the journey. Hence, it becomes important for the e-commerce companies to get good quality sellers on the board. It is more likely that a new consumer will buy from the seller who has good review online and people have been appreciating the quality of product he has provided in the past. (Cantallops Salvi, 2014) Positive review in a way gives a relief to the consumers, he knows that the product he is looking to buy is good in quality and will be able to fulfil all the needs that he is looking forward to. At the same time, his faith is restored by the validation been given to him by numerous positive customer reviews. Another important study conducted on the buyer buying behaviour was that customers are more likely to spend 31% more on a business or a product with excellent review, this is most certainly not something astonishing, as it relates to buyers innate nature of getting the excellent product at an affordable price. Customer review not only help in increasing the sale, but it also helps in building a strong brand image in the minds of the consumer, 72% of the consumers believes they trust a brand based on the positive reviews. This leaves a very important space for the marketers, to understand the statistics of the consumers, their faith in the online reviews and hence come up with solutions or products which will make the consumers post positive and great reviews online. Another important trend on Social media these days is the increasing relevancy of consumer generated content (CGC), it is one of the top digital trend currently, it gives user the power to share their views, opinion, feedback, post their concern and grievances online. The utility of this content is that brands these days listen to whatever is being spoken about them online, it is a customer feedback platform for them, and in the market where e-commerce is the thing, social listening becomes important too. Customers are also aware of the importance of their feedback and opinions and hence put their r eal feeling out on the internet, because they know brands do care and brands will listen to their problem. Similarly, the new consumers who are looking to buy some product or service from that particular brand also have access to the customers concern, query and feedback and are thus watching over how the brand reacts once the product has been sold to the customer (Pappas, 2016). A great social listening by a brand helps to absorb more and more consumers online. Web 2.0, where everybody is online, information access has become more and more easy and comfortable and thus it makes more sense to do an online reputation management and understand the importance of the customer reviews on the buying behaviour. Until now it is established that online review have a direct correlation with customer buying behaviour, a positive review leads to affinity of the consumer towards the product and the bad review pulls him away from the product. Online community plays an important role here, buyers in the process of gathering information, become a part of an increasing growing community and start trusting their feedback about the product, thus creating a state of harmony in the digital world. Like the customer review, online blogs also play an important role when it comes to influencing his/her behaviour. It has been shown in a study conducted by Research now that around 9 out of 10 consumers make purchases after reading about a product or service on a Blog. Hence, a lot of businesses use blogs as their promotion material because they know it is a strong influencer for the customers. The Bloggers themselves have earned a lot of followers who follow their writing on the blogs and base their buying decision on their recommendation. This gives bloggers additional responsibilities of being unbiased in their blogs, and provides a correct feedback or information to the customer without having any brand bias (Strauss, 2016). Online marketplace provides almost everything to everything on their portal, ranging from small things like soaps to as big as a virtual garden, hence a variety of bloggers exist based on their expertise and their follower base. Amongst all the millions of p roduct sold on the web, some of the important ones are based on lifestyle, fashion, consumer durable and electronics, these are the product categories where in customer relies heavily on the bloggers content. Professional bloggers and hobbyists write about the brands more often in some way or the other, they either create a highly curated content and post in on their blogs, or go onto Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or even twitter to speak about the brand and its product. And as the internet has found its place in pocket of every consumer in the form of smartphones, they can easily access the information on the go, even at the last minute and change their decision of buying a particular product. Bloggers are increasing their connection day by day with the consumers, the connection builds stronger once the consumer realizes that the feedback is not biased and is some form of paid marketing, in this way consumer loyalty towards the blogger is created, which in turn helps the blogger to expand his civil-engineering with more customer benefitting reviews (Goodrich DeMooji, 2014). Bloggers not only influence the customer in their decision making but they influence their entire journey starting from; information search or discovering about a new product, comparing the product with a competitor brand, deciding on a product, refine the options, seek out for expert advice and in the end inspire purchase in the customer. Bloggers these days use the AIDA model of marketing to influence the customers; A-Attention- Grab the attention of the customer by catch headlines I-Interested- Get them interested into a product by putting in all the relevant information as desired by the consumer D-Desire- Generate a desire to but the product in the customer by showing him ads online and sending him newsletters and recommendation about the product. A-Action to Call- Provide him the info in the form of link on the Blog to make a buy. All these steps contribute towards influencing the buyer behaviour at each step of his buying journey. Blog users have mentioned over and over again that they feel safe and comforted knowing that they are making a purchase decision based on the recommendation of a person who is an expert and have tried the product for himself and thus giving a correct feedback, they trust the opinions of the bloggers. Another interesting insight which puts in blogs more important in a customer buying behaviour is that the customers trust blogs more than the social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram etc. when buying a product. A survey conducted found out how Buyers use blogs in their buying journey, 21% decide on a product or service,19% refine choices,19% get support and answers,17% discover product and services,14% get assured,13% inspire a purchase and 7% execute a purchase. All these points mentioned above clearly indicate the prevalence and the usefulness of the blogs in the journey of a buyer. These days another important concept which is teaming up is of influencer marketing; Brands get an influencer/Blogger/A person with good number of followers and ask them to tweet after using the product, buyers on seeing the recommendation coming from their influencer automatically gets attracted towards the product, their brain starts getting stimulated to the stimulation received by the influencer, thus aide them in the purchase. The essay can be concluded by saying, online customer reviews and blogs plays an extremely important role in influencing the customer in making a purchase decision. Growing penetration of Smartphone makes the information accessible, even on the go, and customers do not move away from having an expert opinion on the product or service they are interested in. At the same time, it is a wonderful opportunity for the brHence it can be said that Buying behaviouraign on the premise of its social listening skills. References Solomon, M.R., 2014.Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being(Vol. 10). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Khaniwale, M., 2015. Consumer buying behavior.International Journal of Innovation and Scientific Research,14(2), pp.278-286. Poushter, J., 2016. Smartphone ownership and internet usage continues to climb in emerging economies.Pew Research Center,22. Park, S. and Nicolau, J.L., 2015. Asymmetric effects of online consumer reviews.Annals of Tourism Research,50, pp.67-83. Cantallops, A.S. and Salvi, F., 2014. New consumer behavior: A review of research on eWOM and hotels.International Journal of Hospitality Management,36, pp.41-51. Pappas, N., 2016. Marketing strategies, perceived risks, and consumer trust in online buying behaviour.Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services,29, pp.92-103. Strauss, J., 2016.E-marketing. Routledge. Goodrich, K. and De Mooij, M., 2014. How socialare social media? A cross-cultural comparison of online and offline purchase decision influences.Journal of Marketing Communications,20(1-2), pp.103-116.