Consumer Behavior: The Influence of Online Reviews and Blogs on Buyers

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of how consumer reviews and blogs significantly influence buyer behavior in the modern digital landscape. It begins by outlining the consumer buying process, emphasizing the roles of need recognition and information search. The essay then explores the substantial impact of online reviews, highlighting that a majority of consumers trust and rely on them when making purchase decisions. It further examines the role of e-commerce platforms and the importance of positive reviews in building brand image and driving sales. The essay also discusses the increasing relevance of consumer-generated content and social listening, as well as the influence of blogs and bloggers in providing product information and recommendations, including the use of the AIDA model. Finally, the essay touches upon the rise of influencer marketing and concludes that online reviews and blogs play a crucial role in shaping the entire consumer journey, from initial product discovery to the final purchase decision.

Running Head: Consumer Behaviour
Blogs and consumer reviews
Impact of Customer reviews and Blogs on Buyer Behavior

Consumer Behavior P a g e | 1
Impact on Buyer Behaviour-Consumer review and Blogs
Buyer behaviour can be understood as the systematic approach consumers follow when entering the
purchase process and making the buying decisions. This can be seen as four step process which helps
to understand the buyer behaviour at a microscopic level. Need recognition is the first step in the
consumer buying process; this is a point at which a consumer becomes aware of existence of a
functional or an emotional need. Hence, the marketers play an important role in need recognition by
stimulating the need awareness in its marketing plan. Information search is conducted Post need
recognition, consumer look forward to compare the products against a given set of criteria and also
looks forward to evaluate other option. Marketers here have to focus on effective positioning and
strong brand development to appear in customer information search (Solomon, 2014). In order to
drive purchase and customer experience, customer loyalty and retention are very important to
include in the marketing strategies, when the company is looking for long term relation with the
customers. Provide loyalty programs; add on selling efforts etc. help in building loyalty amongst the
consumers. Customer arrives at a decision by combining all the information he has collected and
evaluated with his need for product, he gets into a decision mode to buy the product. Everyone from
his peers, subordinates, word of mouth, internet, blogs, reviews assist him in making the right
decision (Khaniwale, 2015)
Hence it can be said that Buying behaviour extremely impulsive in nature, but it is more like doing a
systematic research on the product, and hence it leaves the current marketers a lot of gaps to fill in
with their marketing strategy, one such part of the marketing strategy which influences the buying
and purchasing behaviour of consumer is consumer reviews and Blogs.
Internet has a global penetration of 46%, which means 3.419 Billion people are connected through
Internet out of the total population of 7 Billion. Also the unique Social media users are 2.307 Billion

Consumer Behavior P a g e | 2
and unique Mobile users add up tune to 3.790, the world can be seen more like a global village
where every person is connected with internet. Internet thus opens a lot of avenues for the markets
to promote their products and services and influences the customers buying behaviour(Poushter,
2016)
Consumer review have a very strong role to play in influencing the buying behaviour of the
customers, hence it is very important to learn and understand the impact and attitude of the
costumer review on the consumers. According to one of the studies conducted in 2016 it has been
shown that as many as 90% of the consumers read online review and an overall majority of 88%
trust the online reviews and recommendation. It can be said that online reviews comes in handy to
the customers when they are looking forward to buy a product, it helps them in in their purchase
decision. Moreover it also makes sense as the customer reviews posted online are the reviews of
people who have already used the product, and thus it makes more sense to trust their reviews. As
mentioned earlier that the world has slowly but gradually transformed into a global Internet and
hence a lot of information is available online which makes the customer buying journey easy and
filled with utmost certainty. Customers these days put same or more amount of trust on the
customer reviews as much they put it on their peers or closed ones, it has become that important
aspect in customer purchase journey (Park & Nicolou, 2015). The world today is changing; the buying
habits of people are change and also the buying process. The days when people used to go to the
malls, speak with the sales representatives, take their word on the product has been replaced by
comments posted online by the customers. The shopping is now limited to Internet, thanks to a
number of e-commerce sites which have eased the buying process for the consumers. Amazon,
Alibaba, Flipkart, E-Bay are the e-commerce sites which work on a marketplace model and facilitates
transaction between buyers and seller, they just act as a medium in connecting the buyer to seller
and facilitate the journey. Hence, it becomes important for the e-commerce companies to get good
quality sellers on the board. It is more likely that a new consumer will buy from the seller who has
good review online and people have been appreciating the quality of product he has provided in the
past. (Cantallops & Salvi, 2014) Positive review in a way gives a relief to the consumers, he knows
that the product he is looking to buy is good in quality and will be able to fulfil all the needs that he
is looking forward to. At the same time, his faith is restored by the validation been given to him by
numerous positive customer reviews. Another important study conducted on the buyer buying
behaviour was that customers are more likely to spend 31% more on a business or a product with
excellent review, this is most certainly not something astonishing, as it relates to buyer’s innate
nature of getting the excellent product at an affordable price. Customer review not only help in
increasing the sale, but it also helps in building a strong brand image in the minds of the consumer,

Consumer Behavior P a g e | 3
72% of the consumers believes they trust a brand based on the positive reviews. This leaves a very
important space for the marketers, to understand the statistics of the consumers, their faith in the
online reviews and hence come up with solutions or products which will make the consumers post
positive and great reviews online. Another important trend on Social media these days is the
increasing relevancy of consumer generated content (CGC), it is one of the top digital trend
currently, it gives user the power to share their views, opinion, feedback, post their concern and
grievances online. The utility of this content is that brands these days listen to whatever is being
spoken about them online, it is a customer feedback platform for them, and in the market where e-
commerce is the thing, social listening becomes important too. Customers are also aware of the
importance of their feedback and opinions and hence put their real feeling out on the internet,
because they know brands do care and brands will listen to their problem. Similarly, the new
consumers who are looking to buy some product or service from that particular brand also have
access to the customers concern, query and feedback and are thus watching over how the brand
reacts once the product has been sold to the customer (Pappas, 2016). A great social listening by a
brand helps to absorb more and more consumers online. Web 2.0, where everybody is online,
information access has become more and more easy and comfortable and thus it makes more sense
to do an online reputation management and understand the importance of the customer reviews on
the buying behaviour. Until now it is established that online review have a direct correlation with
customer buying behaviour, a positive review leads to affinity of the consumer towards the product
and the bad review pulls him away from the product. Online community plays an important role
here, buyers in the process of gathering information, become a part of an increasing growing
community and start trusting their feedback about the product, thus creating a state of harmony in
the digital world.
Like the customer review, online blogs also play an important role when it comes to influencing
his/her behaviour. It has been shown in a study conducted by Research now that around 9 out of 10
consumers make purchases after reading about a product or service on a Blog. Hence, a lot of
businesses use blogs as their promotion material because they know it is a strong influencer for the
customers. The Bloggers themselves have earned a lot of followers who follow their writing on the
blogs and base their buying decision on their recommendation. This gives bloggers additional
responsibilities of being unbiased in their blogs, and provides a correct feedback or information to
the customer without having any brand bias (Strauss, 2016). Online marketplace provides almost
everything to everything on their portal, ranging from small things like soaps to as big as a virtual
garden, hence a variety of bloggers exist based on their expertise and their follower base. Amongst
all the millions of product sold on the web, some of the important ones are based on lifestyle,

Consumer Behavior P a g e | 4
fashion, consumer durable and electronics, these are the product categories where in customer
relies heavily on the bloggers content. Professional bloggers and hobbyists write about the brands
more often in some way or the other, they either create a highly curated content and post in on
their blogs, or go onto Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or even twitter to speak about the brand and
its product. And as the internet has found its place in pocket of every consumer in the form of
smartphones, they can easily access the information on the go, even at the last minute and change
their decision of buying a particular product. Bloggers are increasing their connection day by day
with the consumers, the connection builds stronger once the consumer realizes that the feedback is
not biased and is some form of paid marketing, in this way consumer loyalty towards the blogger is
created, which in turn helps the blogger to expand his base and come up with more customer
benefitting reviews (Goodrich & DeMooji, 2014). Bloggers not only influence the customer in their
decision making but they influence their entire journey starting from; information search or
discovering about a new product, comparing the product with a competitor brand, deciding on a
product, refine the options, seek out for expert advice and in the end inspire purchase in the
customer. Bloggers these days use the AIDA model of marketing to influence the customers;
 A-Attention- Grab the attention of the customer by catch headlines
 I-Interested- Get them interested into a product by putting in all the relevant
information as desired by the consumer
 D-Desire- Generate a desire to but the product in the customer by showing him ads
online and sending him newsletters and recommendation about the product.
 A-Action to Call- Provide him the info in the form of link on the Blog to make a buy.
All these steps contribute towards influencing the buyer behaviour at each step of his buying
journey. Blog users have mentioned over and over again that they feel safe and comforted knowing
that they are making a purchase decision based on the recommendation of a person who is an
expert and have tried the product for himself and thus giving a correct feedback, they trust the
opinions of the bloggers. Another interesting insight which puts in blogs more important in a
customer buying behaviour is that the customers trust blogs more than the social media platforms
like Facebook, Instagram etc. when buying a product. A survey conducted found out how Buyers use
blogs in their buying journey, 21% decide on a product or service,19% refine choices,19% get
support and answers,17% discover product and services,14% get assured,13% inspire a purchase and
7% execute a purchase.
All these points mentioned above clearly indicate the prevalence and the usefulness of the blogs in
the journey of a buyer. These days another important concept which is teaming up is of influencer

Consumer Behavior P a g e | 5
marketing; Brands get an influencer/Blogger/A person with good number of followers and ask them
to tweet after using the product, buyers on seeing the recommendation coming from their
influencer automatically gets attracted towards the product, their brain starts getting stimulated to
the stimulation received by the influencer, thus aide them in the purchase.
The essay can be concluded by saying, online customer reviews and blogs plays an extremely
important role in influencing the customer in making a purchase decision. Growing penetration of
Smartphone makes the information accessible, even on the go, and customers do not move away
from having an expert opinion on the product or service they are interested in. At the same time, it
is a wonderful opportunity for the brands to work on their online reputation management, and drive
its marketing campaign on the premise of its social listening skills.

Consumer Behavior P a g e | 6
References
Solomon, M.R., 2014. Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being (Vol. 10). Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Prentice Hall.
Khaniwale, M., 2015. Consumer buying behavior. International Journal of Innovation and Scientific
Research, 14(2), pp.278-286.
Poushter, J., 2016. Smartphone ownership and internet usage continues to climb in emerging
economies. Pew Research Center, 22.
Park, S. and Nicolau, J.L., 2015. Asymmetric effects of online consumer reviews. Annals of Tourism
Research, 50, pp.67-83.
Cantallops, A.S. and Salvi, F., 2014. New consumer behavior: A review of research on eWOM and
hotels. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 36, pp.41-51.
Pappas, N., 2016. Marketing strategies, perceived risks, and consumer trust in online buying
behaviour. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 29, pp.92-103.
Strauss, J., 2016. E-marketing. Routledge.
Goodrich, K. and De Mooij, M., 2014. How ‘social’are social media? A cross-cultural comparison of
online and offline purchase decision influences. Journal of Marketing Communications, 20(1-2),
pp.103-116.

Consumer Behavior P a g e | 7