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IMPACT OF ONLINE REVIEWS ON CONSUMER DECISION MAKING PROCESS

WITH REFERENCE TO MAYILADUTHURAI DISTRICT

Article · June 2022

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169   JOURNAL OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF MUMBAI, ISSN: 0972-0766, Vol. XCV, No.14, 2022

IMPACT OF ONLINE REVIEWS ON CONSUMER DECISION MAKING

PROCESS WITH REFERENCE TO MAYILADUTHURAI DISTRICT

Dr.K.Suganthi, Principal-Vivekananda College of arts and Science for Women

Mathika Parveen.M, First Year M.com, Vivekananda College of arts and Science for Women
Vinothini.G, First Year M.com, Vivekananda College of arts and Science for Women-Sirkali

Abstract
Customers have superior power in market, rapid increase in digital marketing turned the buyer behavior in a different
mean, Most of the customers strongly believe the online reviews when they search for a new product. Each review has a
title and body text. customers are most likely to purchase from a website that has customer reviews than a website which
does not have a reviews. According to a Bright Local survey, 85% of customers read online reviews before making a
purchase decision.
Keywords: Customers, reviews, purchase decision

INTRODUCTION:
Consumers are the king of business, in the modern digital marketing era, customer satisfaction and feedback plays a vital
role in purchasing decision of consumers, as the reliability of consumers towards product increases because of online
reviews and rating by customers. In recent years consumers often engage in searching online reviews to mitigate the
received risk associated while purchasing new products and services, People pay more attention to online reviews now
a day. Online reviews attract the new customers, reduces doubts, and providing confidence to the purchasing decision
of customers. Positive customer reviews increases the reputation of the website. By viewing the customer reviews the
companies can come to know about the expectation and nature of the customers and it helps in further improvement in
the quality of the products or services. Online customer reviews are no t only helpful to the purchasing decision of the
customer but also helpful to the companies in improving their business.

IMPACT OF ONLINE REVIEWS ON CONSUMER DECISION MAKING PROCESS:

Online reviews for a product can influence consumer judgments on product through information. Consumers can infer
the quality of products or services according to the reviews and experience to reduce personal time and reduce risk
of purchase. On this way consumers can make their personal opinions easily accessible to global communication and
helpful to the consumers who are making decision while search for a product in online. Online product reviews and
ratings having influence on consumer purchase decision as they form the basis for influencing psychological and social
characteristics of consumers. Positive online reviews give more confidence to the customers.Online customer reviews
are playing a major role in the consumer decision making process. Online reviews have become a primary source of
product information and an important factor that influence the consumer purchasing decision. Online reviews provides
information about the product to the customer for making decisions while they decide to buy a product in online in
reference to Amazon, Flip kart, Meesho etc.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE:
Park, lee and Han, (2007)A customer is always in search of quality information in an online environment. The quality
of online review has a positive impact on consumers purchase plan and purchasing intention increases with an increment
170   JOURNAL OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF MUMBAI, ISSN: 0972-0766, Vol. XCV, No.14, 2022

in the number of reviews,A better understanding of perceived review helpfulness offers definite perks to online retailers
and review providers
Zhu and Zhang (2010)Consumers reliance on review is dependent on and influenced by the format characteristics
of the review and the online review system design
The finding of Lee, Park, and Han (2011), showed that greater perceived credibility of online consumer reviews
among potential consumers led to higher purchase intention.Combination of reviews and review characteristics are
significantly associated with the perceived usefulness of reviews
Racherla and Friske (2012)The negative information outweighs the positive information because negative
information reveals more about the personality and characters of someone than positive information does
Devedi, Sujatha, and Pathak (2017) studied the parameters of review content on which checked online reviews
before buying a product or service. They identified that consumers viewed online reviews for understanding quality of
the product, cost benefit to the product etc.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:

Consumer perception towards buying a product have changed during theses days,as they look on the review of
consumers and the star rating for the product play a significant role in purchase decision,positive feedback boost the
sales volume,however negative feedback with or without intention pull back the sales volume even for a quality product,
a single negative review can change the mind of the customers. After seeing the negative review, the consumers face
difficulties in making their decisions of whether to buy a product or not.
OBJECTIVES:
•• To study on impact of reviews in online purchase.
•• To analyses the decision making process by the consumer towards reviews of product.

METHODOLOGY
This research adopted descriptive approach with a sample size of 60 from Mayiladuthurai district. Simple random
sampling technique was used to select the targeted samples. This research is mainly focused on impact of online reviews
on consumer decision making process with reference to Mayiladuthurai district ( Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Meesho).
Both primary and secondary data were used. Primary data were collected through questionnaires using random sampling
method.The secondary data were collected from the various unpublished records, books, journals, and websites.

VARIABLE:
Dependent variable is consumer’s age and income.
Independent variable is online shopping app, reviews and its impact on consumer.

Table 1 Age category of the respondents

S.NO Age No. Of. Respondents Percentage
1 18-25 51 85%
2 25-30 3 5%
3 30-35 1 4.7%
4 Above 35 5 8.3%
TOTAL 60 100%
171   JOURNAL OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF MUMBAI, ISSN: 0972-0766, Vol. XCV, No.14, 2022

Chart 1 Age category of the respondents

The above chart shows that 85% of responses are between 18-25 years age group and 8.3% of responses are above
35 years age group and 4.7% of responses are between 30-35 years age group and 5% of responses are between 25-30
years age group.

Table 2 Income category of the respondents

S.NO Income No. Of. Respondents Percentage
1 10000-15000 38 63.3%
2 15000-25000 12 20%
3 25000-50000 6 10%
4 Above 50000 4 6.7%
TOTAL 60 100

Chart 2 Income category of the respondents

172   JOURNAL OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF MUMBAI, ISSN: 0972-0766, Vol. XCV, No.14, 2022

The above chart shows that 63.3% of responses are between 10000-15000 income group people and 20% of responses
are between 15000-25000 income group people and 10% of responses are between 25000-50000 income group people
and 6.7% of responses are above 50000 income group people.

Table 3 Occupation of the respondents

S.NO Occupation No. Of. Respondents Percentage
1 Student 35 55%
2 Working 12 20%
3 Business 4 6.7%
4 Others 11 18.3%
TOTAL 60 100

Chart 3 Occupation of the respondents

Table 4 Online reviews have impact on purchasing decision

S.NO Impact on purchasing No. Of. Respondents Percentage
decision
1 Strongly Agree 10 16.7%
2 Agree 40 66.7%
3 Neither agree nor disagree 9 15%
4 Disagree 1 1.6%
TOTAL 60 100
173   JOURNAL OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF MUMBAI, ISSN: 0972-0766, Vol. XCV, No.14, 2022

Chart 4 Online reviews have impact on purchasing decision

The above chart shows that 66.7% of respondents agree that online reviews have impact on purchasing decision and
16.7% of respondents strongly agree that online reviews have impact on purchasing decision and 15% of respondents
neither agreed nor disagreed and 1.6% of respondents disagree that online reviews have impact on purchasing decision.
Applying χ2 test
Let us take the hypothesis that impact on online reviews is not associated with age groups.
The observed and expected frequencies are given below.
O E (O-E)2 (O-E)2/E
35 34.68 0.1024 0.0029
2 2.04 0.016 0.0007
1 0.68 o.1024 0.1505
3 3.4 1.64 0.4823
0.6364

O- Observed frequency E- Expected frequency

χ2 = 0.6364
υ = (r-1) [(-1)] = (4-1) (2-1) = 3
υ =3, χ2 = 0.05 = 7.82
χ2 < table value
∴ Impact of online is not associated with age groups.
The calculated value χ2 is less than the table value. Hence the hypothesis is accepted. we therefore conclude that impact
on online reviews is not associate with age groups.
Applying F test,
Let us take the hypothesis that is no significant difference in online & offline shopping on the basis of income.
Hypothesis opinion about online reviews differs significantly on the basis of income.
Source of variation Sum of square v Mean sum of square
B/I 370 3 123
B/Shopping 2 1 2
Residual 6 3 2
378 7
174   JOURNAL OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF MUMBAI, ISSN: 0972-0766, Vol. XCV, No.14, 2022

F = s12/ s22
= 123 / 2 = 61.5
The critical value of F for v1 = 3 and v2 = 3 at 5% level of significance is 9.28. The calculated value is greater than
table value.
∴ The hypothesis is rejected. Shopping differ with respect to income.
F = 2/2 = 1
The critical value of F for v1 = 3 and v2 = 1at 5% level of significance is 10.13. The calculated value is less than the
table value.
∴ The hypothesis is accepted.
Online & offline shopping do not differ with respect to income
Findings:
•• It was found that 85% of respondents are from the 18-25 age groups.
•• It was found that 63.3% of responses are from the people who are having the income of 10,000-15000.
•• It was observed that 55% of responses are from the students.
•• It was clear that 36.7% of people are using Flipkart app for online shopping.
•• It was found that majority (43.3%) of people are having the opinion that Flipkart has the most positive reviews.
•• It was observed that 38.3% 0f people are having the opinion that Amazon has the bad reviews.
•• It was very clear that 58.3% 0f people are always checking the online reviews before purchase a product in online.
•• It was found that 51.7% 0f people agree that online customer reviews are very helpful.
•• It was observed that 65% 0f people agree that online reviews are trustworthy.
•• It was found that 35% of people not decide to buy the product in case of having bad reviews.
•• It was clearly found that majority (66.7%) of the people agree that online reviews have impact on purchasing decision.
•• It was found that 63.3% of people are satisfied with the online reviews.

CONCLUSION:
Online reviews influence consumer purchasing decisions only when consumers’ reliance on online reviews is sufficiently high
when they make purchase decisions. Consumers are attracted by positive feedback and negative feedback totally drop the product
sales, also positive feedback attracts more customer, helps in clearing doubts, also increases the confidence of customer to make
purchasing decision towards a product. consumers have a stronger social presence on going through online reviews or searching
a product to their needs online reviews support them psychologically resulting in higher purchase intentions. Consumers are able
to get information about the product by viewing online customer reviews at a glance. Consumers can express their opinion about
the product or services publicly through online reviews.Online reviews have given modern emphasis to the concept of personal
opinion share by users. Thus an online review has a higher impact on consumer decision making process.

REFERENCE
1. Nielsen, “Online Shopping Trends”, (USA: The Nielsen Company, 2010)
2. Pappas, N (March 2016). “Marketing Strategies perceived risks, and consumer trust in online
behaviour” (PDF). Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 29: 92–103. doi:10.1016/j.jretconser.2015.11.007.
3. Bigne, Enrique (2005). “The Impact of Internet User Shopping Patterns and Demographics on Consumer Mobile
Buying Behavior” (PDF). Journal of Electronic Commerce Research. 6 (3).
4. «A guide for businesses on distance selling» (PDF). Office of fair trading. 2004. Archived from the original (PDF) on
10 August 2013. Retrieved 19 March 2014
5. Steven Millward (November 12, 2014). “New record for world’s biggest shopping day as Alibaba’s shoppers
spend $9.3 billion in 24 hours”. Tech in Asia. Retrieved December 5,2014.
6. Botha, J.; Bothma, C.; Geldenhuys, P. (2008). Managing E-commerce in Business. Cape Town: Juta and Company
Ltd. p. 3. ISBN 9780702173042.

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