Before consumers decide on a specific item to purchase, they learn about others’ past experiences through word-of-mouth (WOM). Today, the Internet has replaced traditional face-to-face WOM and has created a new electronic WOM platform (eWOM). Consumers now have a breadth of information at their fingertips and can access thousands of user reviews online. Word of mouth is considered one of the most market information sources that influence consumers. It is so influential because consumers usually trust other consumers’ information more than the information generated by advertisers and marketers because WOM is typically generated and communicated behind marketers’ selling purposes and is thus considered to be more trustworthy and credible (Blackshaw 2006, Sen and Lerman, 2007).
The developing of the Internet has increased consumers' alternatives for receiving unbiased product information from other consumers and provides the opportunity for consumers to articulate their opinions by engaging in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). Examples of the types of online WOM platforms: product review websites, retailers’ websites, brands websites, personal blogs, message boards and social networking sites (Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh and Gremler, 2004).
Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) has several characteristics (e.g. directed to multiple individuals, available to other consumers for an indefinite period of time, and anonymous) that differentiate them from the traditional word-of-mouth (WOM). These characteristics enable eWOM to exist between people who have no or weak relationship or even can be anonymous, this anonymity helps people to freely share their opinions and reviews without revealing their identities (Goldsmith and Horowitz, 2006), also the unique characteristics of eWOM encourages consumers to share their opinions freely with other consumers, thus increasing the volume of eWOM (Chatterjee, 2001). The spreading existence of virtual opinion platforms and their high level of acceptance by consumers suggests that customer articulations on opinion platforms have a great influence on consumer buying and communication behavior and consequently, consumer purchasing intention (Stauss, 1997). It is important therefore, to know how much consideration consumers give such articulations when making purchasing decisions and what factors have the most influence.
Whitlark, Geurts and Swenson (1993) defined purchase intention as “a purchase probability associated with an intention category at the percentage of individuals that will actually buy product” (as cited in: Halim, Hamed and Malaysia, 2005). From the previous definition it can be noticed that purchase intention is a subject of great interest to policy makers and business practitioners, knowing which variables, influence purchase intention, are the most important thing to a particular customer group and help decision makers to make predictions on consumers’ choice of products or services.