The Impact of Online Consumer Review on Patronage Intention towards Internet Retailers in Nigeria

Abstract

Despite the increased confidence in online shopping, consumers are still skeptical when shopping online and therefore rely on online reviews to aid their purchase decision. This study investigates the impact on online consumer reviews on patronage intention towards internet retailer based on the theoretical lens of the elaboration likelihood model, signaling theory and the accessibility-diagnosticity theory. Specifically, the study examines the main and interaction effects of OCR valence, volume and the familiarity of the retailer on customers’ patronage intention. 82 undergraduate students were randomly assigned to one of the 8 experimental conditions in a 2(OCR valence: negative vs. positive) × 2(OCR volume: high vs. low) × 2(retailer’s familiarity: familiar vs. unfamiliar) full factorial between-subject experiment. Five hypotheses were stated and tested using a two-way ANOVA on SPSS version 15. The results indicate that OCR valence and retailer’s familiarity affect patronage intention; patronage intention was stronger for both familiar and unfamiliar retailers when reviews were positive than negative and patronage intention increased for unfamiliar retailers when reviews are high in volume, whereas volume does not affect patronage intention for familiar retailers. Accordingly, it was recommended that retailers should motivate satisfied customers to provide positive reviews, unfamiliar retailer should incentivize consumer to drop positive reviews and display such reviews on social media and in their advertising to overcome unfamiliarity. Finally, it was recommended that retailers should monitor online reviews and recalibrate its services accordingly to improve performance.