- A Large Number of Consumer Recommendations? or A Small Number of Friend Recommendations? : Purchasing Decision Making based on SNS
- Shim, Seon-Young ;
- The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies, volume 17, issue 3, 2012, Pages 15~41
- DOI : 10.7838/jsebs.2012.17.3.015
Abstract
Recently, there happens many purchasing cases encouraged by friends` recommendation in SNS (Social Network Service). This study investigates the effect of friend recommendation on consumers` purchasing heuristic. For this purpose, we compare the effect of friend recommendation with consumer recommendation in terms of trustworthy, specialty, relevancy. Usually, the frequency of friend recommendation is far lower than that of consumer recommendation. Hence, we examine how the effect of information source (friend recommendation or consumer recommendation) is moderated by the frequency of recommendation, as well. As results, this study finds out that, under the same frequency, friend recommendation does not have significantly stronger effect on the purchasing heuristic, although friend recommendation is evidenced as one of significant heuristic inducers. However, in terms of trustworthy, friend recommendation is significantly superior to the consumer recommendation. Moreover, under sufficiently higher frequency, friend recommendation works as better heuristic factor than consumer recommendation. The results deliver managerial implications in the perspective of understanding consumers` purchasing decisions and responding strategies of firms.