The Impact of Electronic Word-Of-Mouth on Customer Purchase Intention: Study On The Sri Lankan Fashion Industry

Abstract

"The research was conducted with the intention of exploring the impact of electronic word-of-mouth on customer’s purchasing intention in the Sri Lankan Fashion industry. A pilot study was conducted initially to confirm that a research problem existed, and was identified that the presence of e-WOM is weak due to lack of captivating marketing strategies by fashion brands of Sri Lanka. Then the study examined and identified the different dimensions of e-WOM which were argument quality, information credibility, review quantity and source credibility. The deductive approach and quantitative methodology were chosen in testing the relationship between each of these dimensions and its impact on customer purchase intention by building a conceptual framework and hypotheses. Then a survey was carried out, where 250 valid responses were collected and was run for a series of tests using the SPSS software to analyze the data. The data analyzation led to the findings that all 4 variables (argument quality, information credibility, review quantity and source credibility) positively and significantly impacted customers’ purchasing intention, and out of which “source credibility” was considered the most influential. The study then concluded with a discussion on the findings, limitation of the research study and by providing recommendation to fashion brands to improve their marketing strategies and encourage e-WOM."