Electronic word-of-mouth - motives for reading customer opinions online

Marwan Khammash, Katherine Allan and Jamie Burton

The internet enables customers to obtain electronic word-of-mouth from other customers. This paper illustrates a qualitative research project to identify customer motives for reading other customers' online articulations from online consumer opinion platforms and how much consideration consumers give such articulations when making purchase and communication decisions.

Electronic word-of-mouth – motives for reading customer opinions online

Marwan KhammashManchester Business School, United Kingdom

Katherine AllanCiao GmbH, United Kingdom

Jamie BurtonManchester Business School, United Kingdom

INTRODUCTION

Using Internet consumer opinion platforms, customers can obtain electronic word of mouth from other customers. Customer opinions are available to a vast number of other customers online, and therefore can be expected to have a significant impact on the success of goods and services.

This paper will apply the research plan of Khammash and Burton (2005)1 to investigate these specific issues:

  • Motives for reading articulations on opinion platforms;...

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