Impact of Electronic Word of Mouth on Consumer Purchase Intention in Fast Food Industry: A Conceptual Review with Special Reference to Facebook Users

Abstract

Electronic Word of Mouth (EWOM) communication bears the opinion of customers in getting through with their decision-making process. However, social media has brought a new perspective to EWOM, enabling users to communicate with their existing network on the internet. As for social media, Facebook is the most prominent as it is the most engaging platform compared to the other social media platforms. As it is proven by the descriptive statistical review, Facebook word of mouth is found to be significant in the context of food and beverage. Hence, the current study has opted to find out the impact of EWOM on the Consumer Purchase Intention in the Fast-Food Industry among Facebook users. The fast-food industry is one of the most competitive industries in the world, which indicates that even though there is a negative EWOM towards fast food, the industry sales have grown. Therefore, it can be argued that there isn’t any impact on the negative EWOM on the purchase intention of fast food which anyway contradicts previous scholar’s findings pertaining to EWOM. Hence this is a notable research area. The review is based on the theoretical rationale and supportive empirical findings, whilst empirical evidence is presented to support the arguments. The paper concludes with research propositions to examine how EWOM makes an impact on the purchase intention of the consumer in the context of the fast-food industry. As there was not a clear notion on the behaviour of the EWOM created in the Facebook environment in shaping the purchase intention, this study would direct the researchers to conduct future studies with clear, theoretical and empirical rationale.