An Empirical Investigation of the Impact of Internet Word of Mouth (IWOM) on Consumers' Purchase Intentions—With Consumer Perceived Value as the Mediating Variable

Abstract

With the rise and development of online shopping, it has become increasingly common for consumers to make purchases through online channels, but due to the virtual and untouchable nature of the Internet, it is not possible to try any product before purchasing it, so Internet Word of Mouth (IWOM) has become an important reference for consumers when making online purchases. In this paper, we develop a research model called IWOM-Purchase Intentions and use consumer perceived value as a mediating variable to empirically investigate the impact of IWOM on purchase intentions in an e-commerce environment. The data was collected by questionnaire survey and analysed by SPSS25.0. The results show that all the hypotheses are valid, that Internet Word of Mouth (IWOM) has a significant positive impact on consumers' willingness to purchase through consumers' perceived value, and that consumers' perceived value acts as a complete mediator between the two; on this basis, recommendations are made for relevant entities to implement Internet Word of Mouth (IWOM) marketing strategies.