Study on the impacts of opinion leader in online consuming decision

Abstract

Traditional researches on affecting factors of online consumer purchasing decision evolutes from consumer willing, consumer behaviors to online Word-of-Mouth (WOM), all of which emphasis the decision-making of seller, while product selection is dismissed. With the development of social media network, online opinion leaders who focus on certain products recommendation instead of sellers are become more and more popular. Based on the discussion of affecting factors in online consumer purchasing decision, this paper analyzes the systematic and professional recommendation process of opinion leaders under online WOM scenario. The popularity of opinion leader not only influences sales of products and consumer searching behavior, but also WOM propaganda patterns and e-business model innovation. © 2011 IEEE.