![](bg4.png)
5 LIMITATIONS
eWOM is a rather new field that requests a more
theoretical ground to the measurement. There are
some limitations associated with this research.
Firstly, the scale of the measurement is rather
small, 58 people cannot represent the majority of
population. At the time of convenience, most of the
respondents were University students. Any future
survey should consider respondents’ education level,
occupation and income. These should be taken into
account as different backgrounds affect the way
people think, subsequently making decisions.
Secondly, social media as a whole is a fairly new
area. People initially used it as a socializing tool
rather than business tool. Retailers only recently set
up their own accounts. People are still getting used
to the business side of social media. Facebook itself
has been working on various applications to help the
retailers interact with customers.
Thirdly, though Facebook is an open platform
where people can share everything, not everyone
wants to share everything they have bought; some
people would like to keep their privacy.
At the moment, many retailers lack real
engagement with the customers rather than the
‘follow us’ and ‘like’ buttons at the bottom of their
web pages. Though this research briefly touched on
the motivations of eWOM, a more in depth
qualitative and quantitative research is needed to
help to understand what are the customers’ thoughts
and motivations.
6 CONCLUSIONS
Facebook as a social network tool is popular among
the young people. This research attempted to
investigate the consumers’ eWOM activities on
Facebook, their motivations, engagements and
online shopping behaviours. However, some eWOM
activities do not appear as popular. Facebook is seen
as a communication tool rather than business tool.
When friends start to recommend or review on their
Facebook, people are more interested. The retailers
should note this behaviour and develop more
appropriate strategies to deal with consumers’
behaviours.
There is a clear difference in the degree of trust;
people trust their family and friends the most,
strangers the least. And if there were a lot of reviews
from strangers, they would trust the advice more.
When the retailers promote new products on social
media, they should pay attention to whose opinions
people would respond. The trust scale of
recommendations can be associated with purchase
decision when recommended products or service.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The research presented in this paper formed part of
MSc thesis submitted to the University of
Westminster by Fangni Wang.
REFERENCES
Allsop, D.T., Basett, B.R. and Hoskins, J.A. (2007).
Word-of-Mouth research: Principles and applications.
Journal of Advertising Research, 47(4), 398-411.
Agresta,S., Bough,B. and Miltsky,J. (2010). Perspectives
on Social Media Marketing. 1
st
Edition Delmar
Cengage Learning, 48-55.
Dennis,C., Harris,L. and Sandhu,B. (2002). From brick to
clicks: understanding the e-consumer. Quantitative
Market Research –An International Journal 5(4):281-
290.
Dholakia,R.R. (1999). Going shopping: key determinants
of shopping behaviors and motivations. International
Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 27(4),
154–165.
Duhan,D.F., Johnson,S.D., Wilcox,J.B., and Harel,G.D.
(1997). Influences on consumer use of Word-of Mouth
recommendation sources. Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science, 25(4), 283-295.
Goyette,I., Ricard,L., Bergeron,J. and Marticotte,
F.(2010). e-WOM Scale: Word-of-Mouth
Measurement Scale for e-Services Context. Canadian
Journal of Administrative Science 27:5-23.
Nielsenwire.(2010), Friending The Social Consumer.
Retrieved May 17, 2012 http://blog.nielsen.com.
Powell,G., Groves,S. and Dimos, J. (2011). ROI of Social
Media: How to Improve the Return on your Social
Media Marketing Investment, 1
st
ed, John Wiley &
Sons, pp.42-50.
Schiffman,L.G. and Kanuk,L.L. (1995). Consumer
Behavior, 9th Ed., NJ: Prentice Hall.
Silverman ,G (2001) . The Secrets of Word-of Mouth
Marketing: How to Trigger Exponentioal Sales
Through Runway Word-of –Mouth. New York:
American Marketing Association.
Sundaram,D.S., Mitra,K. and Webster,C. (1998). Word of
Mouth Communications: A Motiational Analysis.
Advances in Consumer Research, 25, 527-531.
Van den Bulte,C. and Stremersch,S. (2004). Social
contagion and income heterogeneity in new product
diffusion: A meta-analytic test. Marketing Science,
23(4), 530–544.
WEBIST2013-9thInternationalConferenceonWebInformationSystemsandTechnologies
392