The impact of online reviews and influencers on customers' purchasing intention

Abstract: Date: (2022-06-01) Level: Master thesis in Business Administration, 15 cr. Institution: School of Business, Society and Engineering, Mälardalen University. Authors: Mohammad Battha, (1993-06-10) Fadi Zina (1989-01-04) Title: The impact of online reviews and influencers on customers' purchasing intention. Supervisor:Stylianos Papaioannou Keywords: Influencers, Online reviews, Purchasing intention, Generation Y-Z. Research question: What is the impact of online reviews and influencers on the purchaseintentions of generations Y and Z of a given product or service? Purpose: Authors are aiming to investigate how influencers and online reviews can boost thepurchase intention of a brand. Hence, the authors scrutinize some of the influencers' andonline reviews' characteristics and analyze their impacts on purchasing intention from ageneration Y and Z customer perspective. The authors foresee expanding the literature andopening a door for further research in this narrow area of study. Methods: a deductive research method was applied through direct questionnaires to anumber of online consumers to test hypotheses in this research, and later the data wasanalyzed through regression and correlations tables. Conclusion: The online reviews by previous customers have a strong impact on customer’spurchase intentions. Also, the message carried by the product ambassadors such as bloggersand celebrities impacts the customers’ purchase intentions. The influencers carry the image ofa product and thus it is significant for the marketing brands to consider a careful selection ofbrand ambassadors as this impacts greatly on the future customer purchase intention.