The Impact of Online Reviews on Purchase Decision; Evidence From Buyers of Smartphone in Nairobi

Abstract

The opinions of consumers are drastically altered after reading the evaluations and comments of other consumers posted online. Some academics even go so far as to claim it is more effective than more conventional kinds of advertising. Since recommendations from prior consumers lessen the chance of a product failing to meet expectations, this strategy has been fairly successful in its purpose to influence the decision-making process. Even though this is a very important topic, studies in this area have not been able to agree on the direction of the link between online reviews and purchasing choices. There is a lack of consensus on whether positive or negative evaluations have a greater impact on a consumer's decision to make a purchase after reading them online. Furthermore, research has shown that reading online evaluations has little impact on whether or not a consumer makes a purchase. Furthermore, the majority of Kenyan research has focused on the effects of digital marketing on the overall performance of businesses and other organizations. Few studies have looked at how consumers' perceptions of products and services online affect their purchasing decisions. Thus, the purpose of this research is to determine whether customers' exposure to internet reviews affects their final purchase choices. This research uses a descriptive approach to determine the nature of the connection between the explanatory and observable variables. A systematic questionnaire was used to collect the necessary information for the investigation. Only 282 (or 74%) of the 384 people polled responded to our invitation. We'll choose a sample of those responders at random using some stratification method. In this research, quantitative techniques were used to examine the data. Topics in this field include descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and ordinary least squares regression. The research indicated that although positive evaluations did influence buyers' decisions, bad reviews had the reverse impact. Respondents would rather see videos or visual representations to ensure that the evaluations are accurate. Consumers placed a higher importance on professional reviews than on those written by ordinary users, and users tended to read critical evaluations rather than flattering ones, according to the research. It has been shown that the price of a phone has a negative impact on sales, whereas customer interest in a specific brand and set of features has a positive impact. The study's findings suggest that businesses might win back prospective customers by responding empathetically to unfavorable online evaluations. Promoting phones to the general xi public requires the use of expert-made instructional videos and critiques. The study's findings suggest further investigation into consumers' reliance on both expert and personal perspectives while making purchases.