Going Crazy for Reviewing

Abstract

Word-of-mouth (WoM) has always exerted a great effect on consumers' behaviors and intentions. With the advent of internet, this influence has grown both in terms of potential audience reachable and of potential effect led to firms' sales and reputation. Hence, the marketing literature has recently started to investigate motivations and drivers able to foster/hinder electronic-WOM (e-WOM). Therefore, this research aims to explore the effect on the propensity to share comments and reviews online (active WOM) of the following three drivers: (1) propensity to rely on passive WOM; (2) expected service quality; (3) propensity to spend. The authors tested their hypotheses on the fashion industry, collecting 1454 usable answers from Italian consumers. The results indicate that both passive WOM and propensity to spend are drivers able to foster the spread of e-WOM. On the other hand, expected service quality shows a significant negative direct effect and a significant positive indirect effect on active e-WOM: these two effects compensate each other. Thus, the total effect is negligible.