Internet Research

The effects of blogger recommendations on customers’ online shopping intentions

Chin-Lung Hsu Judy Chuan-Chuan Lin Hsiu-Sen Chiang
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The effects
The effects of blogger of blogger
recommendations on customers’ recommendations
online shopping intentions
Chin-Lung Hsu 69
Department of Information Management,
Received 28 August 2011
National Taipei College of Business, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China Revised 15 June 2012
Judy Chuan-Chuan Lin 21 August 2012
Accepted 21 August 2012
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Department of Computer Science and Information Management,

Soochow University, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China, and
Hsiu-Sen Chiang
Department of Information Management,
National Taichung University of Science and Technology,
Taichung, Taiwan, Republic of China

Abstract
Purpose – Blogging has become part of a consumer’s decision making process when shopping
online; however, the understanding of blog recommendation’s effect on consumer purchase
decision is still vague. The purpose of this study is to examine whether the blog reader’s trusting
belief in the blogger is significant in relation to the perceived usefulness of the blogger’s
recommendations; and how the blog reader’s perceptions influence his/her attitude and purchasing
behavior online. The moderating effect of blogger’s reputation on readers’ purchasing intentions is
also tested.
Design/methodology/approach – Based on various theories, a model was proposed in this
study. A survey involving 327 blog readers as participants was analyzed in the empirical study
to investigate whether the usefulness of bloggers’ recommendations and trusting beliefs
toward blogger had influence on consumers’ attitudes and behavioral intentions toward online
shopping.
Findings – The results indicated that perceived usefulness of bloggers’ recommendations and trust
had significant influential effect on blog users’ attitude towards and intention to shop online. Moreover,
the findings showed that different determinants affected the users of perceived-high-reputation and
perceived-low-reputation blogs.
Originality/value – The findings suggest bloggers’ electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) to be a
promising marketing strategy for increasing sales. The marketers should provide free trial products
and services to the perceived-high-reputation bloggers who, as valued opinion leaders, will influence
and prompt others to shop online through a trusting effect. As for perceived-low-reputation bloggers,
the marketing strategists should strive to emphasize the usefulness of products and services being
marketed, so these perceived-low-reputation bloggers can focus more on describing the advantages
and benefits of products or services discussed in their blogs.
Keywords Blogging, Recommendations, Online shopping, Trust, Reputation, Electronic commerce,
Blogs, Consumer behaviour
Paper type Research paper

Internet Research
This research was supported by grants from the National Science Council of the Republic of Vol. 23 No. 1, 2013
China under Contract Number NSC 97-2410-H-212-009. In addition, the authors wish to express pp. 69-88
r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
appreciation to Dr Cheryl Rutledge, Associate Professor of English, Dayeh University, for her 1066-2243
editorial assistance. DOI 10.1108/10662241311295782
 INTR 1. Introduction
23,1 In recent years, blogging has become one of the most popular channels for recording
and discussing personal feelings, ideas and opinions related to specific events in
everyday life. An average of 900,000 new articles per day is posted on blogs (Singer,
2009). In particular, people frequently blog their comments after using products
and services. According to the report by myYearbook (Wegert, 2010), 81 percent of
70 consumers seek advices before making a purchase through a social site and 74
percent of those who received such advices found them to be influential in making a
purchase. Therefore, blogging has apparently become a crucial factor before making
a purchasing decision.
A preponderance of blog-related studies examined the factors influencing users’
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acceptance of or intention to use blogs (Du and Wagner, 2006; Hsu and Lin, 2008; Keng
and Ting, 2009; Yu et al., 2010). Comparatively, few studies have demonstrated that
users’ recommendations on blogs can result in a powerful marketing effect for reaching
consumers. Because online transactions are not conducted face to face, consumers need
reliable and useful information to better understand products and subsequently
support their purchasing decisions. Perceived trust and usefulness of the product have
thus become critical keys for influencing buying behavior in the online shopping
context (Gefen et al., 2003a; Pavlou and Fygenson, 2006; Hsiao et al., 2010). Empirically,
trust and usefulness have already been recognized as important factors in online
shopping behaviors (Chau et al., 2007; Chow and Angie, 2006; Gefen et al., 2003b;
Pennington et al., 2003). In comparison with traditional media and online community,
consumers think the contents of blogs are relatively more useful and worthy of trust
(FIND, 2005; Johnson and Kaye, 2009). In addition, many studies have indicated that
the reputation of an online store directly affects shoppers’ trust in the merchant
(Jarvenpaa et al., 2000; Lim et al., 2006; Mayer et al., 1995; McKnight et al., 1998). In the
context of a blog, a reputable blogger values his/her hard-earned reputation and stands
behind the papers, recommendations or services provided.
From a marketing perspective, blogging has been viewed as a new type of
electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) (Osman et al., 2009). It has been established that a
bloggers’ perceived credibility ultimately leads to consumers’ adoption of eWOM
recommendation (Cheung et al., 2009). Moreover, another study has verified that future
product sales, such as for music albums, are positively correlated with the volume of
blog posts (Dhar and Chang, 2009). Therefore, in our study, it is inferred that a majority
of blog readers finalize their purchasing decisions by reading reviews, interacting with
bloggers or complying with a blogger’s recommendation.
The purpose of this study is to examine the correlations between a blog reader’s
trusting belief in bloggers, the perceived usefulness of a blogger’s recommendation,
and the subsequent influence trust and perceived usefulness have on the blog
reader’s attitudes and behavioral intentions in an online shopping context. In
addition, blogger’s reputation as source credibility is also considered an influential
factor in swaying consumer’s decision to buy a certain product. A study done by Jain
and Posavac (2001) concluded that high-credibility source will be more persuasive in
influencing consumers’ purchasing behavior. Moreover, Park and Lee (2009)
mentioned that the consumer is more likely to believe in an endorsed eWOM about a
product if it is from a highly credible source (highly reputable web site). Therefore,
this study also includes the blog’s reputation as extrinsic cues of eWOM information
quality to test the moderating effect of a blogger’s reputation on readers’ purchasing
intentions.
 This study applies the partial least square (PLS) approach to assess the empirical The effects
strength of the relationships in the proposed model. From the theoretical perspective, of blogger
this study identifies the significant effect of blog reader’s trusting belief toward the
blogger and perceived usefulness of blogger recommendation on online shopper’s recommendations
behavior. From the practical standpoint, the implications of findings suggest bloggers’
eWOM to be a promising marketing strategy for increasing sales. For more practical
implication, this study also added questions such as, “What kind of recommendations 71
for products and services do you usually read on blogs?” to gain further insights
into readers’ behaviors about blogger recommendations. The findings were expected to
clarify and facilitate the development of marketing strategies to promote products and
services. Lastly, the findings may guide managers in selecting appropriate marketing
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strategies when interacting with highly reputable and less reputable blog context.
This study is organized as follows: Section 2 provides a theoretical background and
develops the hypotheses tested in this study; Section 3 proposes the conceptual model;
Section 4 describes the research method; and Section 5 provides the results of empirical
test. Finally, Section 6 presents the discussion and conclusions and some implications
for researchers and practitioners.

2. Theoretical background, hypothesis and research model

2.1 Usefulness of blogger recommendations
Previous studies on consumer behavior have indicated that reference groups influence
consumers’ purchasing behavior (Bearden and Etzel, 1982; Childers and Rao, 1992;
Engel et al., 1993). Recommendations from such groups actually play an important role
in consumers’ decisions particularly when purchasing expensive and/or new products
and services is concerned. To reduce risk and uncertainty in buying, consumers
usually depend on opinions or suggestions from others to evaluate purchases (Brown
and Reingen, 1987; Kotler, 1999). In addition, the theory of reasoned action (TRA) also
suggests that an individual may develop beliefs by referring to information from or
normative practices of a group and peers. Consequently, these beliefs will influence
individual behavioral intention.
Compared to formal commercial marketing channels such as advertisements,
bloggers’ recommendations constitute a kind of informal communication channel.
Consumers usually relate to the recommendations from bloggers positively since their
opinions are non-commercial (FIND, 2005). Empirically, Lim et al. (2006) verified that
endorsements from satisfied consumers significantly affect other consumers’
purchases. Moreover, many immediate interactions occur between bloggers and their
readers because most blogs are two-way communication channels, not merely one-way
as with commercial advertisements (Bernoff and Li, 2008). Therefore, bloggers’
recommendations are more reliable and valuable than commercial information
(Wu, 2011).
The technology acceptance model (TAM) is a parsimonious, theoretically and
empirically justified model intended to explain the acceptance of information system/
information technology (IS/IT). Previous research has demonstrated the validity of
TAM across a wide range of IS/IT (Bigné-Alcañiz et al., 2008; Deng et al., 2010; Lin and
Lu, 2000; Lee and Chang, 2011; Tero et al., 2004). TAM is an adaptation of TRA which
postulates that belief (an individual’s subjective probability of the consequence of
a particular behavior) influences attitude (an individual’s positive and negative feelings
about a particular behavior), which in turn shapes a behavioral intention. Davis (1989)
further adapted the belief-attitude-intention-behavior causal chain and proposed the
 INTR perceived usefulness as a significant belief to predict user acceptance of IS/IT.
23,1 Usefulness is defined as “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular
system would enhance his or her job performance” (Davis, 1989). In the context of blog,
current work treats usefulness as perceived usefulness of bloggers recommendations.
Therefore, this study redefined the usefulness as “the degree to which a blog reader
believes that adopting a blogger recommendation would enhance his or her online
72 shopping performance”. Previous research has empirically confirmed that perceived
usefulness has significant effects on attitude and intention (Hsu and Lu, 2004; Lin and
Lu, 2000; Yu et al., 2005). Accordingly, the following hypotheses were proposed:

H1a. Perceived usefulness of blogger’s recommendation will positively affect blog

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readers’ attitudes toward online shopping.

H1b. Perceived usefulness of blogger’s recommendation will positively affect blog

readers’ intentions to shop online.

2.2 Trust
Trust is defined by Doney and Cannon (1997) as “perceived credibility and benevolence
of a target of trust (i.e. the other party)”. This definition of trust is relevant in an online
buying context. A consumer facing some degree of transaction risk turn to the other
person that the consumer believes is credible and benevolent. Trust is an important
factor for successful online transactions (Salo and Karjaluoto, 2007) and is also key for
attracting and retaining customers and obtaining competitive advantage on the
internet (McKnight and Chervany, 2002). Previous studies has confirmed that trust is
strongly associated with attitude toward products and services and toward purchasing
behavior in the online transaction (Kuan and Bock, 2007; Pavlou, 2003). Therefore, to
encourage customer transaction, sellers need to provide trust-related mechanisms
(Dayal et al., 1999; McKnight et al., 2002). A stable and secured payment system, an
unambiguous privacy protection policy and/or adoptions of third party certifications
are some of the practices to build the customer’s institution-based trust (Gefen et al.,
2003b).
From customer’s perspective, product information from various reference groups
and personal media such as blog are needed to reduce transaction uncertainty. Blogs,
one of the popular eWOM platforms, were considered by online users as a highly
credible source among all sources in different media (Johnson and Kaye, 2009; Lee and
Youn, 2009). Therefore, current study regards the trust as a knowledge-based trust
(Gefen et al., 2003b), which is built by repeated interaction experience between
bloggers and blog readers. Specifically, the target of trust is the blogger. Through
reading and frequent interactions on the blog, blog readers become familiar with
bloggers and the content they provide, and in turn trust is formed. Additionally,
this trust formation may depend heavily on blog cues such as past interactions
between bloggers with their blog readers. A blog reader may believe bloggers’ positive
recommendations and then shop on a web site that blogger recommends for specific
products or services.
In recent years, many studies have explored the relationship between trust
and shopping behavior in the online shopping context. For example, on the basis of
the TAM, researchers have incorporated trust to develop a comprehensive model
and have empirically verified that trust has a significant effect on perceived
usefulness and online shopping intention (Gefen et al., 2003b; Tung et al., 2008;
 Egea and González, 2011). Similarly, past studies had empirically verified that trust The effects
significantly affected the attitude (Suh and Han, 2002; Wu and Chen, 2005). Moreover, of blogger
studies such as Lim et al. (2006) and Hsiao et al. (2010) also noted that trust positively
influences attitude and shopping intention, the results of those studies being consistent recommendations
with those obtained in an earlier study by Jarvenpaa et al. (2000). Therefore, we
propose that trust will positively affect blog readers’ attitudes toward online shopping
and behavioral intention to shop online. 73
Furthermore, well-known theories such as TAM, TRA and theory of planned
behavior (TPB) also indicate that the individuals’ behavioral intention is influenced by
his/her attitude toward the concerned behavior. For this study, we define the attitude as
the degree of a blog reader’s positive feelings about online shopping. Empirical studies
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based on these theories have found that attitude positively affect an individual’s
behavioral intention (Hsu and Lu, 2007; Kim et al., 2009). Accordingly, the following
hypotheses were proposed:

H2a. Trust will positively affect blog readers’ perceived usefulness.

H2b. Trust will positively affect blog readers’ attitudes toward online shopping
intentions.

H2c. Trust will positively affect blog readers’ intentions to shop online.

H3. Blog readers’ attitudes toward shopping online will positively affect their
intentions to shop online.

2.3 Reputation
Understanding whether a blogger’s reputation is a moderating variable is obviously
important. In many studies, reputation has been mostly regarded as an antecedent of
trust or behavioral intention. In fact, these studies empirically verified that reputation
significantly affects trust or behavioral intention (Casalo et al., 2008; Keh and Xie, 2009;
Koufaris and Hampton-Sosa, 2004). However, few studies have been conducted on
whether reputation moderates the effects of hypothesized constructs. Since blog
posting is also a form of user-generated content (UGC), the influences of a “credible”
blogger are different from a “not credible” one (Burgess et al., 2009). Therefore, we
believe that bloggers with different level of reputations will influence readers’
perceptions of the respective contents differently. For example, through a normative
effect, a highly reputable blogger may become an opinion leader influencing others to
shop online.
Based on social capital perspective, a person with a good social relation online can
establish a reputation which positively influence the development of persuasive
knowledge and consequently affect others’ purchasing behavior (Hung and Li, 2007).
Furthermore, prior studies have shown that consumers depend on information
provided by reputable sources in the process of decision making (Lutz, 1985;
MacKenzie and Lutz, 1989). Based on the recommendation by the source, a persuasive
message will influence the reader’s confidence on a specific product/service
(Shamdasani et al., 2001). Empirically, Park and Lee (2009) stated that the web
site reputation has a significant impact on the eWOM effect. Their study revealed
the eWOM effect is greater for web sites with established reputations than for less
established web sites. This web site source effect is likely to be applied to the blog
 INTR context. Blog confidence brought about by a credible blogger might influence the
23,1 eWOM posted on the blog. Moreover, eWOM platform such as blogs to which the
review is posted can be a potential factor in influencing consumers’ product judgment
(Lee and Youn, 2009). Therefore, the following hypothesis was proposed:

H4. A blogger’s reputation will affect the relationships proposed in H1-H3.

74
3. Conceptual model
Figure 1 illustrates our research model, in which it is hypothesized that a blog reader’s
intention to shop online is determined by attitudes and beliefs about the usefulness of a
blogger’s recommendation and the trustworthiness of the blogger. Attitude is
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influenced by the impact of beliefs about usefulness and trust regarding the intention
to shop online. In turn, usefulness of a blogger’s recommendation is influenced by trust.
Additionally, blogger reputation was proposed as a moderator in our research
model. Table I summarizes the definition of the constructs.

4. Methodology
4.1 Sample
In recent years, web survey has been used to collect participants’ data in academic
research. Empirical data of current were collected by conducting an online field survey
of the Taiwan blog users. We posted the survey message outlining the goal of this
study and a hyperlink to the survey form on heavily trafficked blogs such as Wretch
blog (www.wretch.cc/blog/), Yahoo! Kimo blog (http://tw.blog.yahoo.com/), eyny blog
(www.eyny.com) and pixnet (http://pixnet.net) as well as online shopping-related online
forums such as Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com.tw) and PC Home (www.pchome.com.tw).
Theses survey sites were chosen because of their wide reach and popularity in Taiwan
(www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/TW). The posting message mainly invited blog
users to respond to the online questionnaire from perceptions of receiving the bloggers’
recommendations before their online shopping. At any time during the one month
when the study was being conducted, online participants could respond to the online
questionnaire by linking the survey URL provided on the message. The participants
are voluntarily response to online questionnaire. Here, a bias existed because the
sample was self-selected and only those participants with experience answered
the questionnaire. After linking to the questionnaire homepage, the respondents were

Blogger reputation
(as a moderator)
Perceived usefulness
of recommendations

Intention to shop
Attitude
online

Figure 1.
Research model Trust
 Construct Definition Reference
The effects
of blogger
Perceived usefulness of
recommendations
The degree to which blog readers believe that the
bloggers’ recommendations enhanced their online
Davis (1989) recommendations
shopping performance
Trust The degree to which blog readers believe bloggers Lim et al. (2006)
and the information contained in their posted papers
are trustworthy
75
Attitude The degree of blog readers’ positive feelings about Fishbein and
shopping online Ajzen (1975)
Intention to shop online The degree to which blog readers believe that they Fishbein and
will shop again online Ajzen (1975)
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Blogger reputation The degree to which blog readers believe in the Koufaris and Table I.
bloggers’ honesty and concern toward its readers Hampton-Sosa Summarized definition
(2004) of constructs

instructed to the procedure of how to go through the survey, and informed them that
they would have a chance to enter a drawing of 20 NT$300 bookstore certificates as
prizes if finishing the questionnaire. After one month, to effectively eliminate repeat
responses (unusable sample) to the survey, we deleted unusable responses including
multiple completions of questionnaire, duplicate IP addresses and e-mail accounts.
Additionally, JavaScript programming was used to check and advise respondents of
unacceptable response, thereby ensuring that all items in the questionnaire are
completed thoroughly. This also helps to reduce the unusable response. About target
segment of blog users, we did not differentiate participation roles (blogger and blog
readers) since many blog participants play all roles. The final online survey yielded 327
usable responses.
Among the respondents, 35 percent were male and 65 percent female; 78 percent
were under age 25; and 67 percent had a bachelor’s degree. The data also indicates that
94 percent of the respondents had more than one year of experience in blogging. In
particular, the study revealed that the sample consisted of more females than males.
This is consistent with the blog usage population since, according to the statistics
(LiveJournal.com, 2012), more females used blogs than males worldwide. Table II
summarizes the demographics of the respondents.

4.2 Measurement development

The questionnaire had two parts: demographic profile and constructs items.
Specifically, the demographic survey ask the respondents personal profile as well as
additional question: “What kind of recommendations for products and services do you
usually read on blogs?”. In addition, to develop scales for measuring constructs such as
perceived usefulness of recommendations, trust, attitude, intention and bloggers’
respective reputations, we utilized measures adapted from past research (Davis, 1989;
Doney and Cannon, 1997; Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975; Hsu and Lin, 2008; Lim et al.,
2006), with modifications to suit an online shopping setting (see appendix for complete
questionnaires). Each item was measured on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from
“strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (5). Furthermore, each item was translated
into Chinese following Brislin’s (1980) translation-back translation method.
Before conducting the main survey, this study performed a pre-test which included
three MIS professors and 7 graduate students with related research interests.
 INTR Measure Items Frequency %
23,1
Gender Male 114 35
Female 213 65
Age Under 25 256 78
26-35 62 19
Over 36 9 3
76 Education High school or less 10 3
Some college 8 2
Bachelor’s degree 218 67
Graduate degree 91 28
Experience in blog use (year) Under 1 18 6
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1-2 61 18
2-3 62 19
3-4 80 25
Over 4 106 32
Experience in online shopping (year) Under 1 38 12
1-2 60 18
2-3 61 19
3-4 57 17
Over 4 93 28
No experience 18 6
Pre-year expenditure for online shopping Never 18 6
Under NT1,000 97 30
NT$1,000-5,000 113 34
NT$5,001-10,000 54 17
NT$10,001-15,000 16 5
Table II. NT$15,001-20,000 12 3
Demographic profile Over 17 5

The wording of the scales, the length of the instrument, and the format of the
questionnaires were revised in pre-test process to obtain the final version of the survey.
Finally, to reduce possible ambiguity in the items, a pilot test involving 81 respondents,
selected from a population of blog readers, was administered. The results of the pilot
tests showed acceptable reliability and validity of the measurements.

5. Results
5.1 Descriptive statistics
Table III lists the means and standard deviations of the constructs. It can be observed
that, on average, the participants responded positively to the research constructs

Constructs Means SD Cronbach’s a

Perceived usefulness of recommendations 3.56 0.71 0.75

Trust 3.32 0.74 0.84
Table III. Attitude 3.61 0.97 0.86
Descriptive statistics Intention 3.69 0.68 0.72
(means and SD) Blogger reputation 3.40 0.77 0.69
 (the averages all being 43). Moreover, the coefficient a values for all constructs except The effects
blogger reputation are above the conventional level of 0.7 (Nunnally, 1987); the scales of blogger
for these constructs exhibited an acceptable level of reliability.
recommendations
5.2 Analytical strategy for assessment of model
PLS graph software version 3.0 was used to test the proposed model since data
collected for most variables in this study deviated significantly from normality 77
(see Table IV). Given these distributional characteristics, this study thus uses PLS as
this method makes no distributional assumptions (Walczuch et al., 2007).

5.3 Measurement model

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The results of the test of the measurement model are listed in Table IV. The data
indicate that the reliability of the items ranged from 0.849 to 0.937, which exceeds the
acceptable value of 0.50 (Hair et al., 1992). The internal consistency of the measurement
model was assessed by computing the composite reliability. Consistent with the
recommendations of Fornell (1982), composite reliability of all the items exceeded
the benchmark of 0.60. The average variance extracted for all constructs exceeded the
threshold value of 0.5 recommended by Fornell and Larcker (1981). Since the three
values of reliability were above the recommended thresholds, the scales for evaluating
these constructs were deemed to exhibit adequate convergence reliability.
The data in Table V indicates that the variances extracted by construct were greater
than any squared correlation among constructs, thereby implying that the constructs
are empirically distinct (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). In summary, the test of the
measurement mode, including convergent and discriminant validity measures, is
satisfactory.

5.4 Structural model

We analyzed the structural model by testing the hypothesized relationships among
various constructs, as illustrated in Figure 2. Perceived usefulness of recommendations
significantly influences attitude (b ¼ 0.165, po0.05), thus supporting H1a.
Unexpectedly, perceived usefulness of recommendations had no direct influence on

Item Composite
Constructs Item Skewness Kurtosis reliability reliability AVE

Perceived usefulness
of recommendations PU1 0.632a 0.292 0.859 0.908 0.767
PU2 0.287 0.276 0.903
PU3 0.356a 0.379a 0.862
Trust TR1 0.571a 0.203 0.849 0.905 0.761
TR2 0.752a 0.721a 0.875
TR3 0.315a 0.213 0.892
Attitude AT1 0.558a 0.030 0.937 0.935 0.879
AT2 0.4250a 0.052 0.937
Intention IN1 0.382a 0.477a 0.914 0.880 0.786
IN2 0.332a 0.277 0.905 Table IV.
Item reliability, composite
a
Note: Significant deviation from normality reliability and average
Source: For procedure see Tabachnick and Fidell (1996) variance extracted (AVE)
 INTR intention to shop online; therefore, H1b was not supported. Moreover, trust
23,1 significantly affected perceived usefulness of recommendations (b ¼ 0.497, po0.001)
and intention (b ¼ 0.079, po0.05), thereby supporting H2a and H2c. Contrary to
expectations, trust had no direct influence on attitude; therefore, H2b was not
supported. The effect of attitude on intention was significant, as shown by the path
coefficient of 0.690 (po0.001), supporting H3. Attitude and trust together accounted
78 for 50 percent of the observed variance in intention to shop online.
To compare the effects of bloggers’ recommendations under different user
perceptions of the bloggers’ reputations, the sample was further categorized into
perceived-high and perceived-low reputation groups to investigate the behavioral
differences between them. To divide the respondents into perceived-high and
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perceived-low reputation groups, the reputation construct with three items was
measured through a single index by averaging the items scores. Thus, the moderator
variable (i.e. reputation) was treated as continuous variables. By using the mean as a
divider, two subgroups (perceived-high and perceived-low reputations) were formed,
with the perception of reputation above the mean and another below the mean.
Among the 327 respondents, 146 claimed to perceive a blogger as having a high
reputation; whereas, 181 claimed to perceive a low reputation. Table VI lists descriptive
statistics and t-test test results for perception of reputation. On average, both the
perceived-high and perceived-low reputation groups responded positively to perceived
attributes such as perceived usefulness of recommendations, trust, attitude and
intention to shop online. Meanwhile, the difference between the two groups is
statistically significant. The average ratings for judged perception of attributes,
attitude and intention were significantly higher for the high-reputation group than
those for the low group.

PU TR AT IN

PU 0.767
TR 0.247 0.761
AT 0.039 0.022 0.879
IN 0.034 0.034 0.495 0.786
Table V.
Discriminant Notes: The diagonals represent the average variance extracted (AVE); the other matrix entries, the
validity of users shared variance (the squared correlations)

Perceived usefulness
of recommendations 0.165*
0.690***

0.497*** Attitude Intention to shop

online

Trust 0.079*
Figure 2.
Results of structural
modeling analysis
Notes: n=327. *,***Significant at the p<0.05 and p<0.001 levels, respectively
 Two separate structural modeling analyses were also conducted for the two groups. The effects
First, the high-reputation bloggers, illustrated in Figure 3, the results indicate that of blogger
trust influenced perceived usefulness of recommendations (b ¼ 0.321, po0.001).
Surprisingly, only trust had a direct influence on attitude (b ¼ 0.223, po0.05) and recommendations
intention (b ¼ 0.150, po0.001); the path from perceived usefulness of recommendations
to attitude and intention were insignificant. Attitude and trust explain 55 percent of the
observed variance in users’ intention to shop online. 79
For the low-reputation bloggers, the results indicate that trust had significant
effects on perceived usefulness of recommendations (b ¼ 0.472, po0.001, see
Figure 4). Trust, however, had no direct influence on attitude and intention.
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Bloggers’ reputation
Constructs High (n ¼ 146) Low (n ¼ 181) t-value

Perceived usefulness of recommendations 3.72 3.25 6.167

Trust 3.67 3.04 10.175 Table VI.
Attitude 3.77 3.47 3.040 Descriptive statistics
Intention 3.81 3.58 3.035 and t-test

Perceived usefulness
of recommendations

0.678***
0.321***
Attitude Intention to shop
online

0.150***
Trust 0.225**
Figure 3.
High-reputation bloggers
Notes: n=146. **,***Significant at the p<0.01 and p<0.001 levels, respectively

Perceived usefulness
of recommendations 0.233**

0.682***
Intention to shop
0.472*** Attitude
online

Trust
Figure 4.
Low-reputation bloggers
Notes: n=181. **,***Significant at the p<0.01 and p<0.001 levels, respectively
 INTR Notably, perceived usefulness of recommendations had a direct influence on
23,1 attitude (b ¼ 0.233, po0.001). Attitude alone explains 47 percent of the variance in
users’ intentions to shop online.

5.5 Recommended products

To gain further insight into bloggers’ recommendations, the questionnaire was also
80 designed to ask, “What kind of recommendations for products and services do you
usually read on blogs?”
Table VII lists the results of this query; showing that 59 percent of the respondents
review recommendations for food and groceries, about 57 percent for computer
software, 48 percent for cosmetics, 47 percent for “3C” products and 43 percent
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for books. These data suggest that retail sellers of these products and providers of
the services mentioned should consider greater deployment of blog marketing
strategies to increase sales.

6. Discussion and conclusion

6.1 Discussion
On the basis of the theoretical model, exploring the effect of bloggers’
recommendations on online shopping is quite valuable for EC researchers and
practitioners. Several implications can be readily obtained from the findings of this
study.
The results of this study are consistent with the findings of a previous study
(Park et al., 2007), which found that the informant and recommender roles are both
positively related to the consumer’s purchasing intention. Indeed, online blogger’s
recommendations do provide the information for consumers before purchasing.
The investigation also verifies that consumers depend on online product
recommendations before making the final purchase decision (Corporate eye, 2010).
Generally, the buying process includes the need recognition and problem awareness,
information search, evaluation of alternatives and purchase. The recommendations
of bloggers may influence several stages of buying process. For instance, in the stage of
need recognition, blog readers may respond to a blog stimulus (i.e. the blogger readers

Items No. of respondents %

Food/groceries 193 59
Computer software (i.e. online games and software) 188 57
Cosmetics 158 48
“3C” products (i.e. computers, cell phones and consumer electronic product) 155 47
Books 139 43
Travel-related services 110 34
Home furnishings 94 29
Internet added-value services (i.e. online music and fortune-telling services) 93 28
Fashion apparel 82 25
CDs, VCDs, DVDs 79 24
Table VII. Toys/gifts/flowers 43 13
Product/service Tickets 36 11
recommendations Investments/financial-related services 32 10
read on blogs Cars/motorcycles/bicycle-related products 30 9
 surf the blog and are attracted by the content of product recommendations written by The effects
a blogger). In addition, the recommendations of blogger may play an important of blogger
resource during the stage of information search, since many potential customers
search for additional recommendations for products they plan to own via internet. recommendations
In the final evaluation stage, the recommendations also have influential effects on
consumer consideration and choice of an experience product because blogger’s
recommendations help consumers perform verification and thus make final purchase 81
decisions. Therefore, the influences of eWOM recommendations are multifaceted.
The study also indicates that attitude toward online shopping to be the most
important determinant of a user’s behavioral intention, thereby implying that
increasing a user’s positive attitude is likely to result in high behavioral intention. We
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also find that overall trust significantly and directly influences intention. The result
seems consistent with previous work by Lee et al. (2011) who verified that perceived
credibility of online consumer reviews had an influence on consumers’ purchase
intentions in online shopping malls. Since blog posting is a form of UGC, our results
seem to suggest that if the content provider (i.e. blogger) is trustworthy and the
contents are useful, the reader behaviors about online shopping will be more likely
affected.
Our findings also show that the determinants affecting users of perceived-high and
perceived-low reputation blogs are different. For users in the high-reputation group,
trust seems to play an influential role in affecting their attitude toward shopping online
and intention. Consistent with Chu and Kamal (2008) study which reveals that when
perceived blogger trustworthiness is high, argument quality has a greater impact on
brand attitudes than when perceived blogger trustworthiness is low. Consequently, this
observation implies that since certain bloggers are perceived to have high reputations,
users tend to accept such bloggers’ recommendations as truthful and thereby
develop positive preferences and behavioral intention for online shopping. This result
highlights the importance of trust in the context of high blogger reputation.
In the context of perceived-low-reputation bloggers, trust had no direct effect on
attitude and intention. Instead, our findings indicate that perceived usefulness of
recommendation dominated blog users’ attitude toward shopping online. Trust did not
appear to have significant effects on both attitude and intention. This may seem
obvious because in this group, blog readers’ perception of the blogger reputation is
relatively lower than the other one. As the result, the perception of trust is not an
influential factor in shaping the online shopping behaviors of this particular group
of blog readers. In fact, for the average ratings in judged trust, the descriptive
statistics show that high-reputation blogger (m ¼ 3.67) are significantly higher than
low-reputation bloggers (m ¼ 3.04). Nevertheless, the finding reveals blog reader’s
trusting belief toward the blogger to be significant in affecting the useful perception of
blogger recommendation. Therefore, the bloggers’ trustworthiness for these blog
readers is still important though these bloggers have insufficient reputation. Here,
trust plays a critical role in influencing the usefulness of recommendation. Although
trust have no significant effect on shopping behavior, blog readers would still shop
online if the blogger’s recommendation is useful; i.e., recommendation can decrease
the search time and cost as well as improve the efficiency of evaluation in different
alternatives choice.
Notably, perceived usefulness of recommendation has no direct effect on purchase
intention in either high-reputation or low-reputation group. Although it is rational
to infer that blog users would want to shop online only if they found bloggers’
 INTR recommendations useful. For example, bloggers can describe the advantages or
23,1 disadvantages of products and services from their self-usage experience. Nevertheless,
the analytical results found that perceived usefulness of recommendation did not
appear to drive blog users’ shopping intention in online context. One possible
explanation for this result is that shopping online is a complex decision that
involves certain degrees of uncertainty and risk taking. Although having a useful
82 recommendation from a credible source may ease some of the concerns, it is by
no mean the influential factor in forming positive intention toward shopping online.
However, the feeling of trust toward high-reputation bloggers seems to have a more
significant effect toward attitude and intention of online shopping since trust can
be considered as an inner feeling that is developed over time.
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6.2 Implications for practice

Our results appear to have important implications for companies seeking to promote
their products and services. Perceived usefulness of bloggers’ recommendations
and trust had been empirically confirmed to have a significant influential effect on
blog users’ attitude and intention. Therefore, bloggers’ eWOM seems to be a promising
marketing strategy for increasing sales. Marketers should strive to encourage opinion
leaders or experienced bloggers to recommend products and services to others.
Through WOM communication, marketers can accelerate marketing effects to influence
consumers’ purchasing attitude and behavioral intention. Moreover, marketers also need
to be sure that the recommendation is available online to help consumers make purchase
decisions. For example, the blogger’s recommendation can be collected and revealed in
the shopping web site. Furthermore, the collected recommendation can be delivered
to consumers via email or short message service (SMS) of cell phone. The more
recommended information the consumers obtains, the more user-generated experience it
is likely to exchange and thus the more consumers it will affect.
Furthermore, the respective marketing strategies will be different with regard to
bloggers’ high or low reputations. For a high-reputation blogger, trust seems to have
more influence on users’ preference. This result suggests that marketers should
provide free trial products and services to the high-reputation bloggers who eventually
become opinion leaders, whose influence will prompt others to shop online through
a trusting effect. In addition, this study suggests that companies should utilize
keyword marketing, such as Google AdSense, for high-reputation blogs, a strategy
to be employed because of high-reputation bloggers’ potentially wide outreach to
consumers. In fact, the findings demonstrate that blog readers tend to trust bloggers’
recommendations, which in turn influence purchasing decisions.
For low-reputation bloggers, perceived usefulness appears to have more influences
on users’ attitude toward shopping online. Therefore, marketing persuasion should
focus on the usefulness of such bloggers’ recommendations. Specifically, if blog users
do not particularly value the usefulness of the information provided, they will
disregard it. Companies may provide more product information or complimentary
products to bloggers in a specific field or market. Furthermore, marketing strategies
should strive to encourage bloggers to describe the relative advantage of specific
products or services in blog. If blog users perceive a blogger’s recommendation to be
useful, they will accept it and consequently develop a positive attitude and a greater
intention to shop online. Nevertheless, when bloggers post negative comments
concerning a specific product or service, companies should note these carefully and
take appropriate steps to rectify the grievances.
 6.3 Limitations and future research The effects
The results of this study should be interpreted and accepted with caution for the of blogger
following reasons. First, this study employed internet users as respondents to
an online survey. Thus, a bias may exist because the sample was self-selected. The recommendations
results show that 78 percent of the respondents were under 25 years of age and 67
percent had at least a bachelor’s degree, indicating that the respondents were
primarily young and well educated. Care should be taken when generalizing these 83
results to other settings because the respondents were relatively young. However,
the young users eventually became the potential consumers. Thus, the results
can still provide better understanding of the effects of blogger recommendation
on online shopping behavior. Additionally, the samples for high-reputation and
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low-reputation groups are relatively small which may cause possible inherent
limitation. However, this study utilizes the PLS approach to compensate such
shortcomings since PLS places much less restrictions on matters such as sample size
and non-normal data (Chin, 2001). Second, statistical analysis provides only
numerical relationships, the interpretation of which depends on the authors’
subjective appraisal. Finally, the subjects were blog users in Taiwan. Culture and
lifestyle may differ among countries. Leidner and Kayworth (2006) indicated that
culture factor will impact IT usage. Since the subjects in this study were Taiwan
blog users, care should be exercised when generalizing the results to other countries
blog users. However, realizing results consistent with previously obtained results
and theories enhances our findings. Hence, this study not only provides a further
understanding of the online shopping behavior of blog users but also offers an
impetus for future research.
The present study developed a research model to examine whether blog reader’s
trusting belief toward the blogger to be significant in affecting the useful perception
of blogger’s recommendation and how these perceptions influence attitudes and
behavioral intentions in an online shopping context. To develop more precise
marketing strategies, future studies can further investigate into the possible
differences among various demographic characteristics such as genders, ages and
income levels. Another fruitful research direction is the study of the effects of
negative eWOM on shopping intention. In this study, we mainly emphasize the
effects of positive eWOM on blog readers. It may be an important issue to see how
negative eWOM affects blog reader’s shopping behaviors.

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Further reading
Hsu, H.H., Lu, H.P. and Hsu, C.L. (2008), “Multimedia message service acceptance of pre-
and post-adopters: a sociotechnical perspective”, International Journal of Mobile
Communications, Vol. 6 No. 5, pp. 598-615.

(Appendix follows overleaf.)

 INTR Appendix
23,1
Construct Item

Perceived usefulness of PU1: bloggers’ recommendations will improve my online shopping

recommendations (PU) performance
88 PU2: bloggers’ recommendations will enhance my online shopping
effectiveness
PU3: bloggers’ recommendations can increase my productivity
when shopping online
Trust (TR) TR1: I believe bloggers’ recommendations to be true
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TR2: I trust information on blogs to be true

TR3: bloggers are trustworthy
Attitude (AT) AT1: I like shopping online
AT2: I think positively toward shopping online
Intention (IN) IN1: I will frequently shop online in the future
IN2: I will strongly recommend others to shop online
Blogger reputation (RE) RE1: bloggers have a reputation for being honest
Table AI. RE2: bloggers have a good reputation on the internet
List of items by construct RE3: I believe many blog users know a blogger

About the author:

Chin-Lung Hsu is an Associate Professor of Information Management at National Taipei College
of Business, Taipei, Taiwan. He received BS, MBA and PhD degrees from National Taiwan
University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, in 1997, 1999 and 2004, respectively. His
articles have appeared in Information & Management, International Journal of Mobile
Communications, Omega, Computers in Human Behavior, International Journal of Computer
Application in Technology, International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction, and
Information Management & Computer Security. His research interests include electronic
commerce and internet marketing. Chin-Lung Hsu is the corresponding author and can be
contacted at: chinlung@webmail.ntcb.edu.tw
Judy Chuan-Chuan Lin is a Professor of Computer Science and Information Management at
Soochow University, Taipei, Taiwan. She received the BSEE from Columbia University, New
York; the MS from Polytechnic University of New York; the PhD in MIS from National Taiwan
University of Science and Technology. Her papers have appeared in Information & Management,
International Journal of Mobile Communications, International Journal of Information
Management, Behaviour and Information Technology, International Journal of Technology and
Human Interaction, and various international conference proceedings and journals. Her research
interests include internet marketing as well as electronic commerce and innovation adoption.
Hsiu-Sen Chiang is an Assistant Professor of Information Management at National Tai-
Chung Institute of Technology. He received his PhD degree in Information Management from
National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Douliou, Taiwan, in 2007. His articles
have appeared in Online Information Review, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data
Engineering and IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in BioMedicine. His current
research interests include electronic commerce, data mining and Petri net.

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