What Effects do Recommendations Have on Customers' Online Purchasing Willingness? An Empirical Study from WeChat Official Accounts

Abstract

With the increasing market share of WeChat in mobile constant messaging application, there are large amounts of sellers establishing official accounts in WeChat. Many of these accounts would make recommendations to customers. But whether these recommendations work and what effects they will have remain to be studied. In this paper, we investigate the key factors influencing customers' online shopping intentions, in the context of recommendations from WeChat official accounts. Based on Expectation Confirmation Model, we add some special situation factors to extend our conceptual model. Results indicate the importance of users' trust towards official accounts, since trust influences users' perceived usefulness and attitude, which are positively related to purchasing willingness. It is suggested that sellers should gain more trust from consumers, and improving reputation of official accounts can be helpful. This analysis model can offer important implications for commercial activities in WeChat, and provide some useful advice for official accounts