The Effect of Word Of Mouth (WOM) on Consumer purchasing

behavior

Submit By: Dalia Salah kamal

Research Methodology Paper

Submitted to the Management Department

Faculty of Management Technology

The German University in Cairo

ID: 25-7244

Tutorial number: T01

Name of Supervisor: Monica Sami

Date: 02.01.2014

Topic: Word of Mouth as tool of marketing.

Contents

1. Introduction:……......................................3

2. Literature Review:……..................................5

2.1 What is Word of Mouth (WOM)?....................5

2.1.2 Importance of WOM........................6

2.1.2 Positive (PWOM) and Negative (NWOM) Word Of Mouth

(WOM) 9

2.1.2.1 Emotional Involvement......................10

2.1.2.2 Level of Expectations.................10

2.2 Consumer Purchasing Decisions process...............11

2.2.1 Consumer Decision Making.....................11

2.2.1.1 Need Recognition...........................12

2.2.1.2 Information search....................12

2.2.2 Influence factors affect consumer purchasing......13

2.2.3 Impulse Purchasing…...............................17

2.2.3.1 Impulse purchasing overview................17

2

2.3 Effect of WOM on consumer Purchasing Behavior.......17

2.3.1 Tie Strength overview........................17

2.3.2 PWOM & NWOM… 18

2.3.3 WOM communication on consumer purchasing behavior. 19

2.3.3.1 Decision making process....................19

2.3.3.2 Impulse purchasing....................20

2.3.4 Research gap………...................................21

3. Methodology………......................................21

4. Conclusion:………......................................24

5. References:………......................................25

6. Appendix:………… 28

3

Table of figure:

Figure 1: Decision Making Process………....................13

Figure 2: Consumer purchasing influence factors.........15

Figure 3 Social Factors.................................16

Figure 4: Maslow hierarchy of needs.....................17

4

1. Introduction:

All the time friends and relatives recommend places,

product, services, movies or even clothes and we follow

these recommendations as it worthy trust than the

advertising. These recommendations are named in the market

Word Of Mouth and it does have its own influence on the

brand image and product reputation which affect the company

with positive or negative influence. Word of mouth is a

communication tool between people and each other with a

previous experience about a certain product or service

(Gildin, 2002:1).

The word of mouth is a very important marketing tool and it

is very important to companies as that word of mouth

influence the companies whether with negative or positive

influent which effect the consumer purchasing decision

which is our focus is to know the effect of WOM on the

consumer purchasing decision. To the consumers WOM is

persuasive source of information (Argan 2012:1).

As we mention before that the word of mouth is indirect

communication tool between people, so it is highly

persuasive as people trust each other more than the

advertising because the sender does not have any personal

gain of the recommendation, on the contrary of the

company's advertising they are making money from it which

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why people rely on the word of mouth in making purchasing

decision (Prakash 2010:3).

In this research it will mention how the word of mouth

effect the consumer purchasing decision through defining

the importance, the characteristics, and the positive and

negative word of mouth and through knowing the consumer

purchasing decision process and what is the factors that

influence consumer purchasing and what is the impulse

purchasing and impulse purchasing types and this could

affect the consumer purchasing decision.

The aim of this research is finding how the word of mouth

affects the consumer purchasing behavior theoretically and

practically. In the methodology section there is

explanation of the research variables and the procedures of

testing the gap which is the effect of WOM on consumer in

the retail as shopping in Egypt. The gap will be tested in

real life through surveys that will be distributed in GUC

among 500 students. The surveys will be in figure of

multiple choice questions that will take 10 minutes to be

answered. The testing procedure will take a month and a

half to conduct the result, and after the conducting the

results will show if the WOM effect the consumer's

purchasing decision in shopping in Egypt or not and then

there is the conclusion section where the whole research

will be summarized.

6

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2. Literature Review:

2.1 What is Word of Mouth (WOM)?

Not all people is aware of the meaning of Word Of Mouth but

if the consumer simple thought where the WOM comes from you

will find the meaning is the word that came out of the

mouth which is the word recommended to anyone about a

product or a brand or restaurant you had dinner in. The

recommendation is the Word Of Mouth which is a market tool

indirect tool not like advertising or planners which need

hiring people to do it, for that reason it's indirect

marketing tool that take place between the people (Chung

and Drake 2006: 2), and according to the marketing experts

word of mouth is the most important marketing tool (Alsop,

1984: 2) and the most powerful tool in the market (Gildin

2002: 7). According to another research Word of Mouth could

be defined as a way of communicating between buyers with

previous experience about a product or a service (Samson

2010:2).

2.1.2 Importance of WOM

The word of mouth is very important as many consumers start

to rely on WOM as source of information. WOM is a very

important tool in advertising market (Argan 2012:1) because

it is advertising tool that could influence the product or

the service reputation which reflect on the company's

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reputation and market share. Nowadays there are many

advertising and commercials which let the consumer

confused. One of the word of mouth factors is noise which

means too many advertising that conclude the consumer not

to trust the advertising and listen to relatives

recommendations (Gildin 2002: 3- 4).

As for the second factor of word of mouth which is

skepticism which means that consumers stopped trusting or

believing the advertising because of the misleading of

advertising or what they have experienced (Gildin 2002: 4).

As for connectivity, the customer are connected to each

other whether online, in club, or relatives consumers are

connected and currently internet makes everything easier

for the consumer as the consumer can get the needed

information not only from known people but also from

totally stranger through the internet. Word of mouth

spreads faster than searching and asking about the product

or the service which saves the consumer's time (Gildin

2002: 4).

Another reason why WOM is important which is experience

delivery, according to Silverman that the consumer would

like to try the product by himself and at some point face

less risk and the real world experience, that will happened

through two ways direct experience which is trying the

product but this way will cost money, time and risk of

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failure, while indirect experience is getting help by

talking to people with previous experience will reduce the

risk and the cost of money and time, and that's why it's

considered the speed of production adoption because the

faster the consumer gets the experience, the faster the

consumer will buy the product (Gildin 2002: 9).

"To summarize, what gives word-of-mouth most of its power is the fact that it is

an experience delivery mechanism [and that] the faster you deliver that

experience, the faster people will feel comfortable enough to go to full adoption

of the product”

- Silverman 2011

(Quoted in: Gildin 2002: 9)

Conclusion the word of mouth importance factors which are

noise, skepticism, connectivity and experience delivery,

and these factors increases and proves the importance of

word of mouth. However all these importance but the WOM

could not be effective for some customers if the brand is

famous and trustworthy like Ipod or Nike (Schellekens,

Verleg and Smidts 2009:1).

2.1.3 WOM characteristic

People don’t know why WOM is considered as persuasive and

powerful tool to communicate as for therefore the word of

mouth main characteristics will be discussed below.

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2.1.3.1 Credibility

The first characteristic is credibility it is known that

consumers tend to researches for information before

purchasing the product and because of the untrusted

information customer refer to Word of mouth. Therefore

customers tend to ask for information from people who tried

the product or had previous experience. As the research

showed that what encourages people to use a certain product

or service is the sincerity of personal sources (Gildin

2002: 8). The company's credibility could be reduced

through negative word of mouth like rumors, rumors could

destroy a company's image and the intention of the

consumers to buy the product, for as example in Indonesia

there was rumor about their meat having pork in it which is

differs with Indonesia religion beliefs and in Russia in

Mars corporation had to face rumors about Moscow's children

having diabetes because of sneakers candy bars (Gildin

2002: 7).

2.1.3.2 Originated

The major points in word of mouth that it is originated

which means that the information is from individuals who do

not any have interest of selling the product or persuading

the receiver of the information to use a certain product.

As was mentioned Word of mouth is an indirect communication

tool that takes place between people that’s why word of

mouth is originated because it originated as it is a

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spontaneously transmitted between consumers (Gildin 2002:

8). In another research it was agreed on that people like

to use indirect communication tool like WOM because the

receiver has nothing to gain through sharing the

information, and for that reason WOM is a high persuasive

marketing tool (Arya 2010: 3).

On contrary advertising message which is based on

persuading the consumer to sell the product or the service

and there was people employed to do create and design their

messages to sell the product, and hence consumer stopped

trusting ads and commercials as the adverting is not worth

trusting. It was proven by studies that 90% of advertisings

is not credible, On the other hand the word of mouth proved

that 90% credible and worth trusting than a salesperson as

the consumer trust the recommendations as it usually comes

from relatives or friends (Gildin 2002: 8).

2.1.3.3 Recommendation

Word of mouth recommendation is live communication as it is

direct and live, for example when a friend recommends a

product or service or even movie he recommended as he is

aware that this movie you might enjoy. Recommendation is a

major point because it effects the purchasing decision, and

because it ends the consumer's confusion, and for that

reason people pay attention to recommendation. Therefore

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recommendation is understandable, more relevant to a way of

communications and more credibility than the advertisement

that’s why consumers do not believe in adverting (Gildin

2002: 9; Arya 2010: 9).

2.1.3.4 Saving money and Time

Finally the last characteristic of WOM which is saving the

consumer's time and money. The Word of mouth saves time and

money by preventing the consumer from searching for

information and just asks the person with previous

experience for recommendation. While on the other hand the

companies are paying lots money for advertising to promote

their products, and not to get the attention of the

consumer, while the word of mouth gets the consumer's

attention. If the companies used the word of mouth as

marketing tool it will be more effective to their work all

they need is to find the right person to talk about the

product or the service (Gildin 2002: 9). The word of mouth

saves money and time as it does not need any planning or

effort to seek for information and that was proven in

another research (Arya 2010: 10).

2.1.2 Positive (PWOM) and Negative (NWOM) Word Of Mouth

(WOM)

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The word of mouth is a powerful tool of communication and

it is considered a positivity of WOM as it helps in

promoting the product and improving the product or

service’s image indirectly as for negativity of WOM it

could destroy the product’s image and that negativity could

be caused by poor service, poor quality of products or

unsafe conditions. A research shows that dissatisfied

customers have huge effect on product’s image or service’s

image as they tend to share and spread their negative

experience to more people than their positive experience

(Gildin 2002: 6-12). In another research it was proven that

customers with bad experience tend to share their

experiences with nine other people, and 13% of the 90%

unsatisfied customers who tend to stop business with the

company share with 20 people their negative experience

(Arya 2010: 3).

"When consumers spread negative word-of-mouth communication over

dissatisfaction with a product or over a question or complaint that is ignored or

unsatisfactorily resolved by the marketer, the effect may be quite damaging".

-Loudon and Bitta 1994.

(Quoted in: Gildin 2002: 12)

2.1.2.1 Emotional Involvement

The factors that affect the positivity or negativity of WOM

are emotional involvement, level of expectations and

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finally employment behavior. The emotional involvement

which is the emotional connection that a consumer has it

with the product which could be a judgmental about the

consumer sharing his experience and how many people will

the consumer considered to share his experience with. The

consumer shares their experiences more with people if the

consumer had more involvement with the product as for

example if a consumer is more interested in cars, the

consumer will spread more information and more stories,

while if the consumer is talking about something less

interested in like grocery the consumer will not talk too

much about his experience even if the consumer faced a

negative situation (Gildin 2002: 6). The emotional

involvement could also be personal involvement as it means

consumer buys product based on their needs or interest

which motivates the word of mouth (Dwyer 2007: 3) and this

was also agreed on by Zaichkowsky (Samson 2010:3).

2.1.2.2 Level of Expectations

As mentioned previous that people tend to share less

positive experience than negative experience as positive

experience are expected to be forgotten soon while the

negative experience does not got forgotten easily because

it is unresolved situation which left the consumer angry

and unhappy.

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People also like to share the unusual experience,

extraordinary and the unexpected experience that’s not

boring and that what the companies need to do to gain the

customers' respect and to make the customers talk more

about the companies' product and spread positive word, the

companies need to exceeds the customers' expectations not

only meet the expectation (Gildin 2002: 12) so that will

leave a positive impact on the consumer and that is the

second factor in the positivity and negativity of WOM which

is the customer expectations, if the product or the service

exceeds the customer expectation that will make the

customer satisfied and leave the consumer with

extraordinary experience which will has a positive impact

on the consumer while if it was less what the consumer

expected that will lead to dissatisfaction which will lead

to negative experience that will impact negatively on the

product image or the service (Gildin 2002: 6).

2.1.2.3 Employment Behavior

Finally, the employment behavior which it does have impact

on the consumer's recommendation if it will be positive or

negative recommendation that depend on the employer if was

helpful, friendly, responsive that will leave a positive

impact on the consumer and the consumer will recommend this

service or the product but if the employer was rude, lack

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of knowledge about the product or the service, unresponsive

and unhelpful to the consumer the opposite will happened

which is negative experience that will affect the product

or the service badly (Gildin 2002: 6). If the companies are

looking for long-term relationship between the company and

the customer the organization should stop treating customer

badly as they are nothing and to deliver better services

(Gildin 2002: 11).

2.2 Consumer Purchasing Decisions process

2.2.1 Consumer Decision Making

The decision making process happened before purchasing the

product and it continues after it and it takes place when

the customer decide to buy a product. This process consist

of five stages which are need recognition, information

search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision and

Post-purchase behavior and these stages will be explained

below. This figure will show the decision making process.

Figure 1: Decision Making Process

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Source: (Kolter and Armstrong 2008: 155)

2.2.1.1 Need Recognition

The first stage is need recognition which means that

customers realize a problem or realize the need of

something. The need could be internal incentives which

meant by the personal basic needs like hunger, thirst and

sex, and it could be external like buying a new car or new

mobile something that is not very basic and could survive

without. The customer could recognize the need of a certain

product through advertising (Kolter and Armstrong 2008:

155-156).

2.2.1.2 Information search

As for the second stage which is information search which

was meant by the information search that the consumer do to

know more about the product before making the decision to

purchase any product but not every customer had to go

through this stage as if the customer has strong reasons

for buying the product, the customer will not need to look

for more information or if the customer is satisfied with

product the customer will not waste time researching for

more information as the customer is satisfied to purchase

the product but if the customer is not satisfied or

confused to buy the product then the customer will need to

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look for more information and there is four sources to

obtain information from, first personal sources like

(family, friends and neighbors), second source is

commercial source like (advertising, sales-people and

dealers) as for the third source which is public source

like (mass media and consumer (rating organizations), and

finally the last source which is experiential source like

(handling or trying the product). The influence of the

information sources to purchase the product differs with

the product and the customer himself (Kolter and Armstrong

2008: 156-157).

2.2.1.3 Evaluation of alternatives

What is evaluation of alternatives it is the third stage in

the decision making process which is the consumer using the

information search stage to evaluate alternative brands

(Kolter 2008: 157). Also was defined as a critical stage

during consumers’ decision-making because consumers are

confused and need to evaluate and compare between the

alternatives so the consumers can make the decision

(Breedt, Beer, Kempen and Merwe 2010:2). How does the

consumer evaluate the alternatives that what many marketers

was wondering but it was revealed that some of the consumer

evaluate alternative logically and they do carefully

calculation to evaluate the alternative product while

others customers do not evaluation of alternative as they

buy the product depending on their impulse or intuition and

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sometime customers depend on friend advice or on themselves

or consumer guide or the sale person (Kolter 2008: 157;

Breedt 2010:2).

2.2.1.4 Purchase decision

In this stage is when the customer decides to which product

or brand to buy. Purchase decision stage is when the

customer decides which preferred brand to buy but there are

two factors that could influence the purchasing decision.

The first factor is the attitude of others. If a relative

or close friend mention their opinion about the product and

make you to consider their opinion like buying the product

with less cost that will lead to buy the product with the

lowest price. The second factor is unexpected situational

factors which mean the unexpected events that could happen

which could change the intention of buying the product like

economics crisis which lead to price increasing (Kolter and

Armstrong 2008: 157 ).

2.2.1.5 Post-purchase behavior

At last the final stage which is the post-purchase behavior

which means the action that is taken after purchasing the

product based on the customer satisfaction or

dissatisfaction. The customer satisfaction or

dissatisfaction depend on what the customers expected if

the expectations exceeds that will lead to satisfaction but

if the product fails to meet at least the limit of the

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customer expectations that could lead to dissatisfaction.

It is important to care about the customer satisfaction as

that effect the product or the service's image (Armstrong

and Kolter 2008: 157-158).

2.2.2 Influence factors affect consumer purchasing

There are factors that strongly affect the consumer

purchasing decision which as society, culture, personal and

psychological factors (Kolter 2008: 137; Wong 2013: 2).

This figure will show us the factors that influence the

consumer purchasing.

Figure 2: Consumer purchasing influence factors.

Source: (Kolter and Armstrong 2008:138).

First factor is cultural, as shown in Figure 2 that it has

subtitles which are culture which is the identification of

society by set of behavior, tradition and values that was

passing through families and the society members. Culture

influences the consumer purchasing as the culture differs

21

from one to another which lead to different products.

Subculture is a group of people who share their values

based on their life experiences. Subculture consists of

nationalities, religion, racial groups and geographic

regions. As for social class which means the division of

the society into people who share same values, interest and

behavior. Social class is not measured individual like

income it is measured as occupation, education and wealth

(Kolter and Armstrong 2008: 137-138).

Secondly, the Social factor which is groups, family and

roles and status. Group means more than one person are

interacting together to achieve individual or mutual goals.

Groups are divided into membership group which is with

direct influence, reference group is a group which

introduces a person to new lifestyle or interest,

aspirational group is where individual's wishes belong to

as for example a management student who wishes to own his

company one day. Families does have influence on consumer

purchasing as family is a part of the consumer life as that

every member of the family has different needs effect and

that effect on the consumer purchasing because as mentioned

before that the first stage of decision making process is

identify the customer needs. Role and status is belonging

to groups or club or a certain organization. Since that

customer sometimes purchase products according to their

roles and status that’s proves the influence of role and

22

status on the consumer purchasing. To prove that social

factor effect the consumer purchasing review Figure 3, that

prove that Social factor lead to purchasing intention that

lead to the purchasing behavior (Kolter and Armstrong 2008:

141-142).

Figure 3 Social Factors.

Source: (Wong and Fan Mo 2013:2)

Personal factors influence the consumer purchasing because

the consumer purchasing the product according to the age

and life-cycle stage, occupation, economics situation,

lifestyle and personality and self-concept. Nothing stays

the same forever and that what happen to people they change

their products or services because of life changes like age

and Life-cycle as that the society is consist of children,

youth, married couple, and old people and every type of age

needs different product or service. Occupation affects the

person's goods or service and which product to buy as if

the consumer is making lots of money that will influence

the purchasing as the consumer will focus on expensive

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products but if the consumer is gaining few so that will

limit the consumer's products and services. As for Economic

situation and how it influences the consumer decision by

affecting product choice. Life style means the way the

person express his interest and pattern of living and that

could affect by focusing only on the suitable product for

the life style and what the consumer is interest in and

stop to take risks. And finally the personality and self-

concept, the personality is defined as how the individual

react and interacts with others. Personality could affect

by limiting the products to certain products that is the

consumer is interest in and reflect their identities

(Kolter and Armstrong 2008: 144-148).

The Final influencing factors is Psychological factor and

it effect in consumer purchasing by the four majors

psychological factors which are motivation, perception,

learning, beliefs and attitude.

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Motive is the need that’s pushing the person to find

satisfaction. Abraham Maslow find the reason of motivation

that could to satisfaction, as it shows in Figure 4

Maslow's hierarchy is consist of self-actualization like

(self-development and realization), esteem needs like

(self-esteem, recognition and status), social needs like

(sense of belonging and love), safety need like (security

and protection) and physiological needs like (hunger and

thirst ) (Kolter and Armstrong 2008: 148).

Figure 4: Maslow hierarchy of needs.

Source: (Kolten and Armstrong 2008:151)

Second, Perception is the way that people choice and

organizes to shape and view a meaningful picture of the

world. Perception has three perceptual processes which are

selective attention and it means hard work that is done to

expose the product or gather the customer's attention,

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second is the selective distortion which means gathering

the people attention to explain information to support what

they believe, while selective retention which means seeing

or remembering the good point about the favor brand (Kolter

and Armstrong 2008: 151-152)

Learning is another factor of the physiological side and

means making change in the individual's behavior through

experience and that happened through interplay of drives,

stimuli, cues, response and reinforcement. While for

beliefs, belief means descriptive that the person thought

and hold on to it and it is based on knowledge, opinion and

faith. The last is Attitude and it is the descriptions for

person's feelings, act toward an object (Kolter and

Armstrong 2008:152-153).

2.2.3 Impulse Purchasing

2.2.3.1 Impulse purchasing overview

Impulse purchasing is defined as sudden desire for

purchasing and it happened unplanned and unreflective. It

is defined as unplanned purchasing as it happened suddenly

to fulfill unexpected desire to purchase a certain product

or just shopping. Sometimes being close to the product or

lots of shopping give the consumer the impulse decision to

purchase without rational thinking. Impulse purchasing

content five crucial elements to describe the impulse

26

purchase process, and these elements effect the consumer

purchasing decision because when the consumer get that

sudden desire to purchase which is the impulse purchasing

the consumer go through the impulse elements which are 1)

sudden and spontaneous desire to act, 2) a state of

psychological imbalance, 3) the start of psychological

conflict and struggle, 4) a reduction in cognitive

evaluation, and (5) lack of the consequences consideration

of impulse purchasing and that effect the consumer decision

(Davis and Sajtos 2009:2).

2.3 Effect of WOM on consumer Purchasing Behavior

2.3.1 Tie Strength overview

The recommendation sources are needed when the consumer is

making decision. Recommendation is used in the decision

making of the consumer under the WOM communication so this

relationship between the recommendation and the decision

maker is called Tie strength. The tie strength is strong a

relationship because the source of the recommendation is

someone who personally knows the decision maker and because

tie strength affect the WOM and because tie strength

classify the recommendation of WOM. This strong

relationship lead to the relying of the consumer on WOM to

evaluate the products or the services and its qualities

like education people seek for recommendation about the

27

best school. This relationship between the WOM sender and

WOM receiver is linking the experiences about a certain

product or service (Argan 2012: 1-2). In other Research it

was displayed that a strong influence of word of mouth was

shown on the recommendation receivers (Schellekens, Verlegh

and Ale (2009: 1).

2.3.2 PWOM & NWOM

Positive WOM is an important as it affects the consumer's

relationship with the product (Samson 2010:2). If the

recommendation was positive the receiver tend to try the

recommended product or service and if the customer was

satisfied with the product or the service the consumer will

be willing to rebuy the product or reuse the service which

will lead to increasing the consumer's relationship with

the product. There are factors that affect the consumer

satisfaction which effect the consumer purchasing decision

such as the employee behavior, level of expectation and

credibility (Gildin 2002:6; Dobele and Lindgreen 2011: 7).

2.3.2.1 Employee Behavior

Customer includes the employee behavior as a factor that

influences the consumer's decision because employees are

the face of the company. If the employee was friendly and

helpful that will leave with positive experience which will

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make the customer satisfied that will lead to spreading a

positive WOM, but if the employee was rude and unhelpful

that will cause dissatisfaction that will cause negative

experience and make the customer to decide not to treat

with this company (Gildin 2002:6). And it was proven that

90% of the unsatisfied customers tend to leave the company

and 13% of the 90% of unsatisfied customers spread their

negative experience with 20 people (Arya 2010: 3).

2.3.2.2 Level of expectation

The level of expectation generate the word of mouth so if

the companies exceed the customer's expectation that will

generate positive WOM and that could lead to increasing the

consumer purchasing to the product or the service, but if

the companies did not met the customer expectation that

will lead to dissatisfied customer which lead to negative

experience which will be spreading more than the positive

which will affect the product or the service's image

(Armstrong and Kolter 2008: 157-158). To exceed the

customer expectation the company need to do something

extraordinary that will leave the customer with unforgotten

experience which will set the extraordinary product or

service as a preference for purchasing (Gildin 2002:12).

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2.3.2.3 Credibility

As was mention above Credibility is worth trusting and

believing in the recommended information. Search shows that

the recommendation produces higher perception of

credibility which lead to trusting the company and if the

customer is trusting and believing in the company that will

affect the consumer purchasing decision as that the

consumer will prefer the trusted product on the other

products (Dobele and Lindgreen 2011:7), and that’s why the

consumer trust the word of mouth as it is personal

recommendation and the sender of the recommendation is not

looking for any benefits in exchange on the contrary of

advertising which is aim to persuade the consumer to buy

the product or the service. The word of mouth proved that

90% credible and worth trusting than a salesperson as the

consumer trust the recommendations as it usually comes from

relatives or friends (Gildin 2002: 8).

2.3.3 WOM communication on consumer purchasing behavior

2.3.3.1 Decision making process

The decision making process which consist of Need

Recognition, Information Search, Evaluation Alternative,

Purchase Decision and Purchase Evaluation all these stages

30

effect in the consumer purchasing decision as it is created

to help the consumer with the purchasing decision. The need

recognition helps the customer to figure their needs and

based on the consumer needs the consumer start to do

researches to gather information about the products or the

services so the consumer could decide which product or

service the customer need to purchase. To find enough

information the consumer need to go through the information

search stage and that could be minimize by asking relatives

and friends for their recommendation and their experiences

and the recommendation will save the consumer's time and

money as that word of mouth does not need any planning or

effort to seek for information and that was proven in

another research (Arya 2010: 10).

After searching for information the consumer need to

evaluate his alternative so he could minimize the product

with the least risk and the word of mouth could help

recommending the best products. Now after evaluating the

alternatives come the purchasing decision and after

purchasing the product it's time to purchase evaluation to

evaluate the purchased product and if it was positive

experience a positive word of mouth will be spread but if

the experience was negative then negative word of mouth

will be spread which will affect the product's image and

that could lead to decreasing in the purchasing of the

product or service (Kolten and Armstrong 2011: 155-157;

31

Gildin 2002: 9-12). The WOM effects the consumer's decision

by confirming the right decision to make or reducing the

alternative chooses and to reduce the risk of making the

wrong decision (Dobele and Lindgreen 2011: 4).

2.3.3.2 Impulse purchasing

Impulse purchasing is a sudden desire for purchasing and

that it happened unplanned and unreflective. It is defined

as unplanned purchasing as it happened suddenly to fulfill

unexpected desire to purchase a certain product or just

shopping. Sometimes being close to the product or lots of

shopping give the consumer the impulse decision to purchase

without rational thinking and that could affect the

purchasing decision for example if a person wanted to buy a

certain brand of a car but then the consumer got impulse

purchasing to buy different type of car which was more

expensive for the consumer. The irrational decision that

was taken without going through the decision making process

could cause negative experience for the consumer and that

was the result of the irrational purchasing, this negative

experience will be spread which will affect the product

image (Davis and Sajtos 2009:2).

32

2.3.4 Research gap

From reviewing the literature review there was a huge gap

found between the effect word of mouth on the consumer

purchasing behavior in retail sector like shopping

therefore the research question will be what is the effect

of word of mouth on consumer purchasing in retail

services?. In the methodology sector the gap will be tested

through certain procedures which will be survey to prove if

the WOM effect the consumer's purchasing behavior when the

consumer go for clothes shopping. Also to prove if the WOM

is an effective market tool and if is it satisfying the

consumers.

33

3. Methodology

Research gap & Methodology:

The research gap is the effect of WOM on retail as clothing

shopping in Egypt? And this means that the gap focuses on

the effect of WOM on consumer in the retail as shopping.

Therefore this is research is explanatory, casual as that

the research gap is reflected in this type of research and

as this research is pursuing the effectiveness of Word Of

Mouth on clothing shopping. This research is quantitative

descriptive. Quantitative as it is seeking to know what the

people agree on according to the effect of WOM on retail

and to do that it needs quantitative research because

quantitative research is made for specific count of some

behavior, knowledge, opinion or attitude and in this

research the intention is to count the influence of WOM on

the behavior and the opinion of customers when it get to

buying clothes, also because it is difficult to use

qualitative as that need to be done through observation or

interviews and that will be hard to be done with quiet

amount of people (Cooper and Shindler 2008: 19).

Variables Background:

This study is focusing on the effect of WOM on consumer

behavior in retail especially in clothing shopping and for

that there is independent variable which is the Word Of

34

Mouth and that because the Word Of mouth does effect the

consumer behavior and that what need to measure it effect

on the dependent variable which is consumer behavior when

it comes to shopping , this variable what will be

monitored, measured, evaluated and analyzed to know the

expected rates of the influence of WOM on consumer behavior

in retail in shopping (cooper and Shindler 2008:59). To

measure the WOM variables there will be specific variables

needed to measure on as recommendation, money and time, as

for the consumer behavior in retail in Egypt the measurable

variables will be clothes quality, prices, location, value,

and reputation of the shop and customer satisfaction.

Prices as the prices are affordable, for the value is the

piece of cloth worth the price are the quality deserves the

price and discounts. As for location is the shop far from

the customer's and is there any other near branches.

Clothes quality is good or bad will the clothes live for

long time or just after two time it will get and what is

the clothes material is it dental, cotton, silk or

wool .The reputation of the shop is it good reputation, is

it bad, what is the worries that most people talk about

like is shop trying to sell damage clothes and based on the

literature review these variables were reached (Gildin

2002: 9).

Instruments:

35

The survey on this study will be done in universities in

Egypt like German university in Cairo (GUC) and American

University in Cairo (AUC) and Cairo university and the

survey will be done in specific date and time and it is for

both gender in age of 18-25 as this is the most age that

will care about this survey and because they are about

fashion. In this research it will be needed to know the

gender, which age the person belongs to. How often they go

shopping in a month and how much do you customers spend on

shopping per month and this will help in knowing the

majority of customers go shopping and the majority of

depending on recommendation and measure how much customer

spends money on shopping. What is your favorite shop is it,

what are most places you buy from this will help in knowing

that if customers depend on known stores and places or can

take the risk of recommendations. Where do you usually take

inspiration for new purchases is it from like from friends,

family, magazines or fashion blogs this will measure the

effect of Word of mouth. How often do you find what you are

looking for when you shop at the stores this will measure

how much customers spending time in searching. Rating the

customer's overall level of satisfaction with word of mouth

as a way of shopping will helps in knowing if the word of

mouth could be a highly recommended market tool.

The question type will be multiple choices therefore the

scaling technique will be random as there is multiple-

36

choice (single response), multiple choice (multiple

response) and likert scale and the questions are balanced

and it is classified and there is no order or distance or

natural origin (Cooper and Shindler 2008: 299).

The questions were developed on the basis of the positivity

of word of mouth and level of expectation of the customer

and the word of mouth characteristic which is

recommendation, credibility.

Sample:

The sample will be drawn in colleges and universities as

universities will have the most different people and from

different ages with different respects of views and from

different standard of living so the target group will be

students as they are the most people engaged in shopping.

The sample will take place in German University in Cairo.

The German University in Cairo has over than 7,000 students

so the sample size of this research will is 500 persons.

The sample will be for both gender and from age 18 to 25 as

for the age it is the most suitable age. Since that the

survey will take place in universities it will be easy to

track and that are why it is probability sample and it will

be simple random sample because it is the purest form

(Cooper and Shindler 2008: 377).

37

Procedure:

The survey will be place in universities and online so it

could save time as it is faster and easier for collecting

the data and analysis, by using statistical software

programs such as SAS, SPSS, or Jump the data will be

analyzed. The data collection is collecting the facts of

the research and there are sorts for data which are

abstractness, verifiability, elusiveness and closeness to

the phenomenon and for this research will be sort under

closeness to the phenomenon as the data will reveal the

truthfulness of the research data and it will be primary

data as surveys can be edited therefore the errors will be

reduced.

This research will need 10 minutes to be answered and the

survey will be available for a month and a half so in the

first 3 weeks the survey will be available for the students

and staff to answered and the next two weeks it will be for

collecting the data and for the last 2 weeks it will be for

analyzing the data.

38

Limitation:

In all researches there are limitations and in this

research there is some limitations as wrong information or

missing information, unclear data because certain answer

options may be interpreted differently by respondents also

Surveys could be inflexible as cannot change the answer and

the sample size could be small to conduct a research on as

there could be some consumers that did not have the chance

to answer the survey. Despite these limitations the

research ndings offer important visions and also requestfi

more researches.

39

4. Conclusion:

The aim of this paper is to introduce the Word of Mouth as

an indirect marketing tool and the consumer purchasing

behavior and how the word of mouth effect the consumer's

purchasing behavior. As was explain above that word of

mouth is an indirect communication tool or an exchanging

way of information between the people and how much word of

mouth is important tool. The word of mouth is very

important for many reasons first the credibility of the

tool, as word of mouth is the more credibility than the

advertising as the sender of information does not have any

interest or reward from sharing the information. Second

recommendation which is a part of word of mouth and it does

have an important role especially that recommendation does

affect the consumer's purchasing decision. Word of mouth

has more importance especially if the word of mouth is

positive or negative as that one bad word could destroy the

product and one good word could improve the company's

image. This research also discuss the decision making

process and why consumer need to go through this process to

buy a product or a service. Also introduce the impulse of

purchasing which means sudden desire for purchasing a

product even if there is no need for buying the product or

the service. The word of mouth does affect the consumer's

purchasing decision through the credibility of the tool as

people became confused because of the many ads nowadays and

40

through recommendation as it trustworthy and already

experienced and from close people in your life which will

understand your need.

After introducing there is the procedures of testing the

gap which is the word of mouth affect the consumer

purchasing behavior when it comes to buying clothes. The

methodology section aim to identify the procedures and

where it will place and when and how much the size of the

sample and how the theory will be tested. The theory will

be tested through surveys as it is suitable for students

and for this research and the testing will take a month and

a half to conduct the data and figure out how much the word

of mouth is effective and influence the consumer's

decision.

5. References:

Argan (2012). Word of mouth (WOM) as a tool of health

communication. A case study of Turkey. In Journal of

society for development in new net environment in B& H,

vol. 6, pp. 216-221.

41

Arya D. P. (2010). Advertisement effectiveness: Role of WOM

in success of educational Institutes in Non-Metro cities.

The IUP Journal of Management Research, vol. 6. no.1, pp.

1-20.

Chung. Y. M and Drake. R (2006). The consumer as advocates

self-relevance, culture and word of mouth. In Springer

Science +Business Media, Vol. 17, pp.269-279.

Cooper, Donald R.; Schindler, Pamela S. (2008). Business

Research Methods. International Edition. McGraw Hill

Publications.

Dobele A., Lindgreen A. (2011). Exploring the nature of

value in the word-of -mouth referral equation for health

care. In Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 27, No. 3,

pp.269-290.

Dwyer P. (2007). Measuring the value of Electronic Word Of

Mouth and its impact in consumer communities. In Journal of

Interactive Marketing, vol.21. No.2, pp.1-18.

Gildin Z. (2002). Understanding the power of word-of-mouth.

In REVISTA DE ADMINISTRAC'O MACKENZIE, vol. 4, pp. 91-106.

Kolter P., Armstrong G. (2008). Principles of Marketing.

Eleventh edition. In Prentice Hall Publication. 42

Merwe D., Kempen E. L., Breedt S. and Beer D. H. (2010).

Food choice: student consumers’ decision-making process

regarding food products with limited label information. In

International Journal of Consumer Studies,Vol.34, pp. 11-

18.

Robert D., Sajtos L. (2009). Anytime, Anywhere: Measures

The Ubiquitous CONSUMER’S IMPULSE PURCHASE Behavior. In

International Journal of Mobile Marketing Vol.4. NO.1,

pp.1-9.

Samson A. (2010). Product usage and firm-generated word of

mouth: Some results from product trials. In International

Journal of Market Research, Vol. 52, No.4, pp. 1-25.

Schelleken A.C; Verlegh W.J and Smidts A. (2009). Two types

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Research, vol.36, pp. 1-4.

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6. Appendix

Questionnaire:

This is a questionnaire aims to examine the effect of Word

of mouth on consumer purchasing behavior.

Location:

Date:

1. How would you prefer to purchase?

a) Online

b) At a local store

c) By mail

d) No preference

e) Others

2. How often you go shopping in a month?

a) Twice in a month or

b) Once a month

c) Less than once

d) More than once.

3. How much do you usually spend on shopping per month?

a) Below 100 L.E

b) 100L.E – 499L.E

c) 500L.E - 999L.E

d) 1000L.E or above

44

4. What is the price of goods?

a) Very expensive

b) Expensive

a) C) neutral

c) Cheap

d) Very cheap

5. What is the quality of goods?

a) Excellent

b) Good

c) Neutral

d) Not bad

e) Bad

6. What is your favorite shop?

a) H&M

b) Zara

c) Mango

d) Cache Cache

e) Other.

7. What are most places you buy clothes from?

a) City stars mall

b) Genana mall

c) Suncity Mall

45

d) Arab Mall

e) Others.

8. Where do you usually take inspiration for new

purchases from?

a) Friends

b) Magazines

c) Fashion blogs

d) Others

9. How often do you find what you are looking for when

you shop at the stores?

a) Often

b) Sometimes

c) Never

d) Don't know

10.Will you buy a product based on a friend

recommendation?

a) Yes

b) No

11.How would you rate your overall level of satisfaction

with word of mouth as a way of shopping?

a) Highly satis edfi

46

b) Somewhat satis edfi

c) Neutral

d) Somewhat dissatis edfi

e) Highly dissatis edfi

12.Which recommendation you receive more?

a) Positive opinion

b) Negative opinion

c) Neutral

13.Which source is more useful of getting information?a) Advertisement

b) Someone's recommendations

c) Others

14.Does WOM effect your purchasing decision?

a) Yes

b) No

15.Do you find WOM is more useful and trustworthy than

advertisements?

a) Yes

b) No

16.Do you think WOM is an effective market tool?

a) Yes

b) No

47

17.What are your 2 main criteria's when purchasing

clothing?

a) Quality

b) Price

c) Comfort

d) Style

e) Color

f) Material

g) Brand

18.What is your occupation?

a) Undergraduate student

b) Freshmen

c) Postgraduate student

d) Other

19.What is your age?

a)less than 18

b)18-20

c)21-23

d)24-25

e)More than 25

20.What is your gender?

a) Female

48

b) Male

49